Ah, Dana Gioia, the presiding genius of the bushwhacked school of poetry,
the former executive of General Foods, now cozy north of San Francisco,
still spouting his nonsense about the "general food reader" without a crumb
of empirical evidence about the audience for poetry in the USA or
elsewhere--its history, its current shape, the role of institutions etc. in
all of that. I thought his familiar arguments, echoed by Joseph Epstein
and several others, had been put to rest years ago before he signed on for
the MFA circus. Let's have a bite of his most famous poem for breakfast:
Cruising With The Beachboys
So strange to hear that song again tonight
Travelling on business in a rented car
Miles from anywhere I've been before,
And now a tune I haven't heard for years
Probably not since it last left the charts
Back in L.A. in 1969.
I can't believe I know the words by heart
And can't think of a girl to blame them on.
It has a few more stanzas too, not all of them quite so frosty! You can
find them in _Daily Horoscope_.
Meanwhile, Bob Dylan was in town Saturday night, lit in red while he
played, I couldn't believe it, "If Dogs Run Free." Now there's a real
populism for you. Two hours into one of the best of some 12 shows I've
heard him play over the years the 18 year-old sitting next to me leaned
over and asked "When will he play one of his famous songs?" Maybe 8000
seats in the place, half of them empty.
Get ready for the jackbooted Texans.
Keith
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