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/
|