August 05, 2004

From a few weeks ago in terms of reading (it is secret reading) but just wrote it up for class blog.

There is an interesting article by Steve Evans in most recent issue of The Poker. It has three or so parts.

The first one is a sort of study of poetry prizes. And includes such lines as "Between 1997 and 2003, the period covered by my research, Bidart received something in the neighborhood of an additional $238,500 in prize winnings." and "Ellen Bryant Voigt, winner of more than $150,000; Louise Gluck, whose name appears most often on my list and who won in excess of $100,000; and B. H. Fairchild, author of The Art of the Lathe and also a winner of more than $100,000 in prizes." and "Whatever conquests in legitimacy this tradition [the "other" tradition? he doesn't name it really] has lately made, however many syllabi it has shown up on, however many actual readers it may claim (and that number certainly equals or exceeds the audience for a mainstream poetry that remains mesmerized by the phantasm of the 'general reader'), however many young poets it has excited and influenced, however many academic positions have been landed, or seats won on the Academy of American Poet's board of chancellors, one stronghold of the Dominant Poetic has proven impregnable, and that's the one where the cashbox is kept."

The second is a series of sentences that each contain the word "time." Such as "Time of the Bush Administration's occupation of the United States, and the US's occupation of Iraq. Time of the looters, the mercenaries, and the assassins. Time of the outsources job." etc. And mixes in also poetry culture observation: "Time of the Peter Gizzi student."

And then the last section contains a series of short reviews of the sort that show up on Evans's Third Factory website/blog.

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