I was pleased to be asked by Anny Ballardini to take part in a series of interviews she's doing with poetry publishers at Fieralingue:
http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=3461
Excerpt:
Q: Are there any parameters by which you understand the political correctness of a literary work? Could you please describe them? Could you give some examples based on the books you published?
A: I can’t really answer the question, as I don’t believe that poetry that thinks of itself as political is of any urgent relevance to the aesthetics of poetry, which has always been my main concern. I assume that some of those poets who write what they call political poetry hope it will have some interest philosophically, if nothing else. Few would expect it to bring about political change.
The failure of the high profile and well-supported political protest song “movement” in the USA in the 1960s should be an indication that if such a popular and internationally well-publicised mass movement as that failed, then certainly “political” poetry (avant-garde or otherwise) has little hope of success.
Q: With the general economic crisis that has hit not only the U.S.A., what is your forecast on the future of the book?
I think the future of printed books will be that they will still be available but for mainly archival purposes, and for collectors of beautiful objects. There may also be a market for them as gifts for special occasions such as weddings, christenings and other rights of passage celebrations. But as a utility, printed books will be used rarely when devises such as Kindle become as ubiquitous and as affordable as digital wristwatches.
http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=3461
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