The False Divide

I was just looking at Quincy Lehr’s blog, The Belletrist, and ran across a discussion of how the tiresome free-verse-versus-formalist binary manifests itself in book reviews. Yes, let the barbaric yawpers of personal and artistic freedom continue to box, package, and inventory all those who write sonnets! Oh, the irony. Naturally, the other idea “represents,” with Tim Murphy dismissing out of hand Erica Dawson’s absolutely stunning, metrically muscular work: “it utterly grosses me out.” Hwaet, Tim! You have saved Our Barbaric Canon from creeping barbarism once again!

Also have a look at Quincy’s hilarious advice on selling your poetry book. That should cure you of your Nobel intentions. My fiction-writing friends with their agents and book deals seem bemused by the poets’ reality. We prefer to be amused by it, which goes down better with the food-stamp mac and cheese.