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RAGE IN AMERICA
Those school shooters. What are we going to do about them? According to Jim Sleeper in a July 4, 2014 Salon article excitedly titled “We, the people are violent and filled with rage: A nation...
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MODERN BRACKET HURTLES TOWARDS SWEET 16
Baudelaire versus Saussure Baudelaire learned from Poe that melancholy is the most beautiful in art, but for everyone but the genius melancholy begins to hurt too much, and turns to pain, and the...
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WHAT COULD BE MORE WRONG THAN A POEM STOLEN FROM A SONG?
Dante may have rhymed like the Cat in the Hat, But who will take you seriously if you rhyme like that? A mournful picture which takes your breath away, A rain covered river in a mist of gray, The...
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MISS UNIVERSITY
Put down your device and listen to me. Do you know Miss University? We owe her a trillion dollars in debt. Are you listening yet? Professor Benjamin took a suicide pill. Hunted by Nazis: no money, no...
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NEXT TO BE SAD
She traded Henry for James And now James is glad, But James doesn’t know he’s The next to be sad. The one she abuses Learns a lesson, Jimmy, lad; The one she chooses is The next to be sad. The man she...
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REPORTER AT LARGE: MARILYN CHIN AND AFAA WEAVER AT THE GROLIER
“Howl” by Allen Ginsberg. The last American poem to be famous? Poetry tells of larger things, and it is entirely in the telling that it succeeds or fails, to tell of those larger things. If Poetry...
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YEAUHHHHHH!!!! SWEET 16 IN THE POST-MODERN BRACKET!!!
Edmund Wilson, who bullied his way into the Sweet 16: Yea, I’m an asshole, what of it? he seems to be saying. In Letters, arrogance goes a long way. EDMUND WILSON VERSUS NORTHROP FRYE Wilson (d. 1972)...
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HERE’S THE SWEET 16 IN SCARRIET’S 2014 MARCH MADNESS POETRY PHILOSOPHER...
Here are the Literary Critics worth reading: the Top 16 Who Have Prevailed So Far and Have Made It To the SWEET SIXTEEN! Every year, Scarriet holds their version of March Madness, with 64 authors...
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YOU ARE NOT WRONG
You are not wrong Who have a faith which cannot be shaken. If you skip one step, it appears Any sequence is smarter than you, And so the world makes us seem mistaken, And so we fail in philosophy and...
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AN AUDIENCE OF ONE
Now that I am famous Do you think I want less Of the lovely moon Who rises too soon With beaming song and misty dress Desired, as she is, by everyone? Or the grand triumphant sun? No. I’ve always had...
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SAY THINGS YOU SAID TO ME BEFORE
Say things you said to me before— The memory of what you are is driving me mad: That beginning of that unlikely tour When our love was discovered, when shy as we were, we became bad. Love, when it...
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NORTH CAROLINA AND POETRY CREDS
The North Carolina controversy is now familiar to all in po-biz. The governor of North Carolina, Pat McCrory awarded the poet laureateship to Valerie Macon, a 64 year old state worker without academic...
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I AM JEALOUS OF YOU
I am jealous of you, Who read what I write, Not because of who you are, Or who you are not. I am jealous of you Because I am certainly dead, Given the swiftness of time— Here you are, alive, and...
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NOTHING WILL GET DONE
She is loving you because she hates somebody else. To know something, you must hate it. You never know what you love. The mist which covers love is more important than love. The worst offense is to...
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THE ROAD TO CRITICISM’S FINAL FOUR
Two more wins. That’s all Harold Bloom or Edmund Wilson needs. As the fate of the other philosophers in the Classical, Romantic and Modern brackets smashes on the rocks of wit and time, in the...
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J.L. AUSTIN, PERFORMATIVE LANGUAGE PHILOSOPHER, SEEKS TO ADVANCE AGAINST...
Edward Said (d. 2003) J.L. Austin worked for British Intelligence. Great Britain, losing its Empire while cozying up to the American one, was trying to save its ass: a dying Empire, known for its...
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POE AND WORDSWORTH IN ELITE EIGHT ROMANTIC BRACKET BATTLE!
Wordsworth, who recently defeated Marx, contemplates advancing past Poe to reach the Elite Eight If one reads Scarriet one is not under the usual illusions about Edgar Poe; one understands he was a...
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IF THE POEM ASK
If the poem ask, what is my beginning? Its hesitation is the reason for its sinning, For truth starts right away To be good. Night at once begins the day. If the poem ask, why is there sorrow? Even as...
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KNEW, DID NOT LOVE; LOVED, DID NOT KNOW
The only purpose of this bird Hidden from you by the trees Is that its signature be heard— And one sharp note will do, Gallant among the melodies, Announcing its joy to you. You sing to birds with...
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I’M ONLY DUMB ABOUT THE DUMB THINGS
When am I right? What is the name of this bird? How many miles to Cincinnati? Is the truth direct? Or must it be overheard? Does this go in there? Is there a cost and a fee? Has the poem started yet?...
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