Talking Points

* "We have thousands of very bad poets in the USA. There are also 20 or so good ones," writes eminent Yale critic Harold Bloom in a recent e-mail. ''All that money should be used to fight poverty and illness here and abroad." Yes. And we have one blubberbound clusterfuck who's been on the wrong side of *all* the good ones. They ain't in your Bloom anthology and they ain't in POETRY magazine. I'll take my thousands over your 20 anyday, pal. If there's ever been anyone who's done more damage to Literature and been given more medals for it, I'd like to know. Maybe Stalin.

* (Cough cough) "Fiercely Independent" Soft Skull Press could have maybe sold more poetry books if they were less the puppet regime of David Lehman. Just a thought. You had your chance to publish The Sonnets and you blew it. That fucker's got Bestseller List written all over it.