(Emcee notes in bold)
From a review of The Counterforce by J.M. Tyree, a discussion
of Thomas Pynchon’s novel, Inherent Vice. The reviewer is Justin St. Clair who writes
almost an aside about his students’ trouble with the demands of reading an
intentionally “difficult” novel.
And this, I fear, is what’s afflicting many of my
students. They don’t find postmodern fiction palatable. They’re offended by its
lowbrow humor, its willingness to subvert even sanctioned causes, its tortuous
sentences, its cringeworthy sex scenes, its refusal of closure, and the demands
it places on its readers. “Difficulty is elitist,” one told me recently.
From footnotes 15 and 17 in BABELLBAB by Heriberto Yepez
Even though a poem is just an efficient collection of lines.
No need to feel poems have to be considered Sublime Objects of Desire.
Poet listeners in reading shouldn't look at the face of the
poet when she/he reads. They should see the page from which (S)(H)e is reading.
That is her/his true face: the page.
The future of poetry will be publicity.
I’ve been to the library recently.
A Wild Surmise, by Eloise Klein Healy
Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison
Imago, by Octavia L. Butler
Soft Science, by Franny Choi
Wind in a Box, by Terrance Hayes
The Committed, by Viet Thanh Nguyen
Latinx Photography in the United States, by Elizabeth Ferrer
Labyrinths, by Jorge Luis Borges
Keeping An Eye Open, by Julian Barnes
Broad Strokes, by Bridget Quinn
Glittering Images, by Camille Paglia
And some links to sites of interest.
