Ironically, I went to college (U.C. Riverside) with Frank Bidart. We were
friends and both had our first poems ever published in the Poetry Workshops
lit mag.
His was worse than mine by a hair!
He, too, is still a nice man when I see him. And very smart.
Stephen V
http://stephenvincent.net/blog/
> Thanks, Stephen, for being the first to supply me with this news. Glad I
> didn't give odds on Frank Bidart. However, I'm still tired of the New
> England regional dominance. Wonder why that old yankee Robert Creeley was
> never annointed? Here's the URL for an event which contained within it the
> seed for the transference of power:
>
> http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/1999/99-024.html
>
> In addition, the Library of Congress supplies an official press release in
> which the reasons for the appointment are presented:
>
> http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2007/07-154.html
>
> Their last word on his career to date is here:
>
> http://www.loc.gov/poetry/laureate_current.html
>
> Perhaps Simic will arrange readings for 1-2 writers I'd like to witness or
> have never seen previously. That's a higher expectation than I had for
> Bidart.
>
> Barry Alpert
>
>
> On Thu, 2 Aug 2007 09:37:26 -0700, Stephen Vincent <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
>
>> I suspect the trouble with Simic is that he long ago exhausted what he
> could
>> mine from a limited frame. Which was, initially, quite wonderful (and, yes,
>> even though personally obviously ambitious in traditional career track
> ways,
>> he was, and probably remains a good guy.) Born in Yugoslavia (I think), he
>> took his tools from Z Herbert(?), and other mid-century middle European
>> surrealist minimalists, and got that aesthetic frame transferred into
>> English. In the way, that is often irritating, these exile qualities got
>> picked up as either exotic, or as exemplars of freedom by the lit
>> establishment during the Cold War(as was true of many such writers,
>> interesting or not, from the Soviet Bloc). Interesting that - as the cold
>> war renews itself, the threat of Russia, the expansion of Nato - that we go
>> from a Nebraska corn man to an emigrant for our laureate. It is, after
> all,
>> a political position/appointment.
>>
>> It will be interesting to see if he does anything interesting.
>>
>> Stephen V
>> http://stephenvincent.net/blog/
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