invid

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I assume that Chelsey Minnis felt humiliated and mortified when she read the following words from Craig Morgan Teicher's review in Publishers Weekly of her book "Bad Bad":

"Petulant, clever, sometimes funny, sometimes irritatingly flippant, Minnis's poems will inspire questions as to whether this work qualifies as poetry at all, though some readers — fans of, say, Bill Knott, at his silliest — may find much to like."

Belittled, disparaged, snubbed, rebuked by this squelch, she must have been—surely any young poet who finds themself compared to a failure like me would suffer chagrin and embarrassment.

—But I of course felt just the opposite: I was honored and flattered to have my work (even "at its silliest") associated with hers.  I was proud to be equated and identified with

a poet whose books I've enjoyed reading and been intrigued with.  

Minnis seems to me to be a fantastic brilliant poet.  By now I've read everything of hers available, all 3 of her books, and have reread many pages in them.

I'm aware that posting this awkward note of praise for her work may further compound the injury inflicted by Teicher with his invidious contemptuous comparison, but—

If she ever sees this, I hope she takes it at face value.  After all, I'm just one of the many admirers of her writing. 

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