Talking Points

* In all my rantings on the subject I have thusfar failed to mention that Natasha Trethewey is one of the most beautiful women I have ever had the pleasure of meeting.

* I'm not sure how poets used to respond to the publication of books that trumpeted 90% plodding bores as the next "genius salvation." But it seems clear that somebody either overestimated the audience for such an anthology or underestimated the backlash. I, in fact, do wish for this book Legitimate Dangers to be taught in schools. The boring Phillip Levine poems in my crappy anthology made me look out the window to discover, yes, John Wieners literally lived a block away from my university. This book teases with poems by McSweeney, Jarnot, Spahr, Kocott that there is something else out there that won't be ignored. Students are smart: they smell bullshit as good as everyone. And I bet they are just as smart if not smarter than their teachers. "We do not fear failure...we fear mediocrity." —. Arnold Van Den Berg. But mediocrity does not scare me in the least.

* I'm beginning to think this is a collection of the kids who didn't get enough from Jorie. It's not filled with her favorite students. And there's no sign of her anywhere, no intro. The errata list in the back of "further recommended reading" would actually have made a more interesting anthology than the one they present. I'm not huge on Mathys, Genoways, Foust, Nutter, etc. But they seem to be up to something much more interesting than some of the Dangers. I believe the anthology is stacked with people Cate and Michael are less threatened by. Hence the canyon-sized gaps in their "off the top of their head aesthetics." Which seem to be a more conscious effort to elevate themselves while marginalizing much-better known practioners. Good luck with that.

* Because of the sudden spike of visits from Lincoln, Nebraska, I thought I might talk about this interesting tidbit from the Texas Observer 2001:

"Once, I took a group of my poetry students on a field trip to the Iowa City Museum of Art. I remember loitering in front of a feminist painting called "The Creation of Eve", when one of the weaker writers in the class looked up at the picture and said very quietly to herself, walking past me, "How did the artist know where to start it?" The ramifications of her question--aesthetic, theological, and practical--amazed me. She had just responded to the very notion of creation with ingenious originality, seeking to reconcile herself, however accidentally and momentarily, with the very fact that something came from nothing, with the forces governing both art and the human condition as a whole."

I don't know why a teacher would snear at a student like this. Maybe he needed to feel better about himself and his own abilities to perceive the vast notions of the universe. But I guess that's how Michael Dumanis *rolls*. Do you like think like anybody travels to like Nebraska to like study with him? Survey Says: XXX. Now that he's finally gotten his name on the front of a book maybe he'll relax, but I doubt it. It's clear to everyone that he is gum on Cate Marvin's shoe and just along for the ride. Enjoy the view!