What's Poetry Worth? [tm]: Bruce Smith's SONGS FOR TWO VOICES

Welcome to What's Poetry Worth? [tm] where we go shopping and let you know how much your soulful verse can be had for on the open market.

Today's contestant is Bruce Smith of Syracuse (not Buffalo) New York. Our secret shopper (Slappy) found 2 copies of his latest hardcover Songs for Two Voices out of the University of Chicago this past April (The Cruelest & National Poetry Month--ed.).

"'Isn't that I: the vexed, the contested life,' opens one of Bruce Smith's startling songs. These split lyrics propose a new, capacious kind of poetic form, in which voice vexes and contests voice — not in parallel lines, not in argument, but in nearly-touching separate arcs that create a new-century version of counterpoint, one half of a song opening and digging beneath and beside the other. Smith's paired monologues are 'willfull and fatal, enraged and tender.'"
— Mark Doty

On big evil corporate asslord website it lists for $22.50 MSP and is offered at 32% off the cover price. Also *47* new and used copies are available starting at $10.55. The copies Slappy found were unread. One listed at $8 and this one (click to enlarge) is listed at $6.50. Bruce's book is down $16.00 in 11 months. The price was changed 3 times. According to our calculations after 4 more months on the shelf it will burst into worthless confetti. Sorry, buddy. That's vexing.

Tune in next time for What is Poetry Worth? [tm]