Is Billy Collins bad on purpose, a possibility that Ron Silliman entertains in his blog today? In the sense of a deliberate and successful "dumbing down" of poetry, indeed yes. The new version of middle-brow? Terry Gross gushing over him on Fresh Air. Usually you have to have some level of education to get the jokes. Reminds me of how Louis Menand describes the readers of the New Yorker: they don't need to be told who Freud is, but they don't can't be expected to know anything terribly specific about him. I've proposed to talk in Chicago next August about parallels between USA "official verse culture" and the Spanish neo-realist style.

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Christmas presents. "So What, A Life of Miles Davis." "How to Beat Your Dad At Chess." "The Adventures of Tintin," (mohawked, 12-year-old neo-colonialist French newspaper reporter and amateur detective), Cachaíto.

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Gary Sullivan now has a blog. Nada too.