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Epigramaphobia, or: Where the Hell Did the Satire Go? by Kent Johnson

John Bradley: You’ve recently pub­lished a book titled Epi­grami­ti­tis: 118 Living Amer­i­can Poets (BlazeVOX, 2006), a large gath­er­ing of epi­grams and accom­pa­ny­ing pic­tures ded­i­cated to indi­vid­ual con­tem­po­rary poets. You’re now expand­ing it to fifty or so more. I think it’s safe to say there hasn’t been any­thing like this in poetry for a long time.

I’ve been think­ing about the grow­ing pop­u­lar­ity of social and polit­i­cal satire with news­pa­per, online, and book ver­sions of The Onion. On TV, there’s South Park, The Daily Show, The Col­bert Report, and a BBCA show called The Thick of It. In film, there’s Bull­worth, Wag the Tail, Thank You for Smok­ing, and Borat. Amer­i­cans seem fairly com­fort­able with social and polit­i­cal satire, but not with lit­er­ary satire, specif­i­cally satire that goofs on writ­ers. What do you make of this curi­ous dichotomy? Is the poet seen as off limits? What con­tem­po­rary poets have been effec­tively employ­ing satire? Is it pos­si­ble that poetic satire is more accepted when it mocks social trends or celebri­ties as opposed to par­tic­u­lar writ­ers, lit­er­ary move­ments, and poetry politics?

Kent John­son: Yes, it’s an inter­est­ing thing. I’m not so sure that Amer­i­cans in gen­eral see “the poet” as off-​limits to satire. Poetry is, after all, of little con­cern to the great bulk of the Amer­i­can population—not exactly an issue many people worry about: prob­a­bly a good thing, in the long view, for them and for poetry both. But it’s cer­tainly the case that satire aimed at poets by other poets is con­sid­ered an off-​limits activ­ity within the con­tem­po­rary poetry com­mu­nity at large. Pointed satire directed at writ­ers by writ­ers is very rare today, and when it occurs it’s usu­ally greeted with indig­na­tion or con­temp­tu­ous silence–or fas­ci­nat­ing sym­bi­otic inter­ac­tions of these. And this is a curi­ous thing, soci­o­log­i­cally speak­ing, given that poetic con­test is a ven­er­a­ble tra­di­tion, one that’s been a cen­tral prac­tice in numer­ous cul­tures and eras. And of course some great, even canon­i­cal writ­ing has come down to us from the epi­gram­matic and insult tra­di­tion: the Greeks and Romans, Vedic poetry, the trou­ba­dours, the Eng­lish Renais­sance, Restora­tion, and Augus­tan peri­ods, Per­sian and Arabic poet­ries, African tra­di­tions and their Amer­i­can exten­sions in “the dozens,” obvi­ous sources to men­tion a few…

But here in early 21st cen­tury Amer­ica we inhabit a poetic sub­cul­ture where, yes, there is great ner­vous­ness, touch­i­ness, and bad humor when it comes to roast­ing the Poet’s legal iden­tity. I’m not sure I have a devel­oped answer as to why; some­one will no doubt write a book on the matter some day. But I sus­pect it has some­thing to do with the deep­en­ing mar­ginal status of poetry within a hyper-​commercialized sur­round that’s increas­ingly driven by celebrity wor­ship and media spec­ta­cle, from talk shows, to pol­i­tics, to art, to jour­nal­ism, to war.

Read the rest of the interview at Digital Emunction.

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Murder, mystery and mayhem by Quentin Mills-Fenn

Two of my favourite Canadian literary stars dish out murder and other nasty stuff in their latest books.

George Elliott Clarke has dabbled in violent death before. For example, a real-life murder formed the basis for both Execution Poems, which won Clarke the Governor General’s Award for poetry in 2001, and his novel, George & Rue.

His newest book, I & I (Goose Lane), is a terrific verse novel about polyracial couple Betty Browning and Malcolm Miles. It’s 1970s Halifax, and our young lovers - pampered daughter and rising boxer - are making a go of it. Then Betty moves to Corpus Christi, Tex., to attend bible college, with Malcolm in tow. There, the beautiful co-ed attracts some unwanted attention and things get very dark indeed. There’s violence and blood and a transcontinental chase, told with beauty and suspense. Clarke alternates voices, from narrator, to Betsy, Malcolm, and the odious Dr. Lowell Beardsley, PhD.

Read the rest of the review at Uptown Magazine