Spanish poet Angel González read a poem last April, at a symposium I myself had organized, in which he compares Mallarmé--in a photo--to a lap dog. As host I could not openly object, but I felt myself seething with anger. This poem to me was one of the most obscene things I had ever heard. It represents the contempt for poetry that inferior poets feel themselves entitled to demonstrate. I feel the same thing about Billy Collins. Irrationally, perhaps.