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16 June 2005: Some halfwit who writes for Vanity Fair called William Logan "the best poetry critic in America." So we discussed Logan a bit at New-Poetry. Paul Lake said, "He writes wonderful zingers, and I like the impulse to write negative reviews about bad poetry, but he seems to look at the whole poetry world through black-colored glasses."
"To that, I responded, "Not the 'whole poetry world,' Paul, just Wilshberia. Nonetheless, I consider him an okay albeit limited critic. Can anyone tell me if anybody who thinks him a poor critic has ever critiqued him (in any kind of depth, I mean)? I also wonder just who the poetry critics in America are supposed to be. Are there more than two or three writing for national publications? How about in the small press? I never hear about anyone who is supposed to be an important critic--aside from the ones writing for the slickstream, whose reputation comes from their positions, not what they say. And what critics are establishing a school of criticism like the idiotically named New Critics? Or the Deconstructionists, etc. I suppose there are the Postmodernists?
"My impression is that nothing much at all has been going on in American Poetry Criticism for twenty years or more but I can't say I know much about it. There are isolated mavericks like Silliman and me, but otherwise just long-spent celebrity-mediocrities like Vendler and Bloom, and journeymen-mediocrities like Logan who are still in their prime. I don't consider myself an innovative critic, by the way--just one trying to understand as much of what's going on in poetry as I can. In fact, I doubt that I'm superior to Logan in any way except range."
There, thanks to New-Poetry, another blog entry done.
Wow, this entry got a response the day after it appeared! A thoughtful one, too:
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Response To Blog501 = yo clue less joe
found your terrible shit reserchin some article on language poetry
some angry dude in minnesoda ripped yr lame ass
thats how i found yr fucked down shit
did you ever read that shit no mind 20 - 10 diveded by A right haha
he also rips logan a new asshole and the two of them argue a bit at the end you dickwad
lemme ask ever get laid in yr life
8 - 3 divided by LOSER
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Odd how males whose IQ's are below 90 think that males with higher IQ's than that are sexless. I, of course, am, but not all males with the ability to think are.
The "angry dude" in Minnesota, incidentally, is Dan Schneider, whose critical acuman, IQ and writing style strongly resemble my anonymous correspondent's. But his website, Cosmoetica, draws well over a hundred times as many visitors as this blog does, so what can I say?
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