I found a copy of Blackburn's "The Cities" for $6. Grove Press, 1st Printing from 1967. Also bought a book by Lewis Warsh.

***

I think everyone should write poetry: kids, people in nursing homes, students, crazies. Everyone, that is, except "professional" poets with MFAs and Pulitzer prizes. If you took a poem by Chs. Simic and said: "this is a poem my uncle from Hoboken wrote," you might be highly impressed. It might be very good for an amateur poet, without anyone making pretentious claims for it.

It's kind of like this child-poet from mid-century France, Minnie Drouet, (or something of the sort). Cocteau reportedly said about her: "all children are geniuses, except Drouet, who is a midget." Once you make a claim that some fairly ordinary poet is great, you invite a backlash.

***

Paul Breslin wrote a chapter on the Deep Image school in his book "The Psycho-political Muse." It is called "deep image, shallow psychology." In an interview Simic, who was reviewed negatively by Breslin in Poetry, dismisses him (Breslin, Northwestern Prof.) as an academic hack. Well, guess what: the review in question is perfectly reasoned in its approach. It asks of this poetry the same questions that are in my own mind.

It is striking how many poets on the Knopf list recently cited by Silliman are poets of the type I have been thinking about lately. Knopf must have an in with the Pulitzer people.