19 nov 2002

Why do I dislike David Lehman, whom I don't even know personally?

1. Role in "Best American Poetry" series, that always seems to include poem of unrelentingly mediocre Donald Hall, no matter who the famous poet editor is.

2. Book on the New York School poets, "The Last Avant-Garde," which leaves out Barbara Guest, and makes the New York school seem less, rather than more avant-garde. The fact that this is the one book someone is likely to have read on these poets.

3. Book on Paul de Man. I don't admire de Man excessively, but the deconstructive criticism must be attacked head-on, if it is to be attacked, not indirectly by disqualification (de Man was a Nazi sympathizer, therefore...)

4. Lehman's own poetry, faux-O'Hara of the worst sort, and its inexplicable presence in media outlets. (I just read a bad poem of his in Slate.)

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