Comments on: Snark & Blurb: A Dialogue

By: Ange

Ange — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 20:26:13 +0000

Alicia, I couldn’t agree with you more.
It’s not that you’re arguing in a circle, it’s that you’re saying something that should be obvious. But it isn’t. I cannot explain why poetry must be scapegoated for all art’s failings. But it is, and every so often, we have to go back to square one and say: poetry is an art that was conceived to make glad the heart of man.
And woman.

By: Alicia (AE)

Alicia (AE) — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 12:08:05 +0000

Thanks very much for your comments…
Ange, I don’t know maybe I am mistaken, but it seems to me that I see “necessary” a lot in blurbs; the rhetoric seems both overinflated and wrong to me. It starts to sound like we “need” poems because they are “useful,” like saying we should have music in schools because it makes kids better at the math section of the SAT. We should have music in schools because it makes kids better musicians, and listeners of music, because music is humane and pleasurable. I guess it boils down to an art for arts sake issue for me. When I see such blurbs, I think–why must poetry be necessary? It seems to me that a lot of things that are not necessary are nonetheless important. Poetry is “not all, it is not meat or drink, nor slumber, nor a roof against the rain…” No doubt I am arguing myself into a circle.
Revive the dead! Wow! That’s a blurb. And I don’t think of Linda Gregerson as an OTT kind of poet. Why do poets who should know better loose all self-control when blurbing? Is it more than anything to please the blurbee? Is it that the backs of books demand exclamation points?
Rachel, I know I’ve seen the Dickey piece you mean… but can’t recall it. Steve would probably know. Is it by Dickey himself? Sounds like him! (There’s a poet whose stock has plummeted, and is perhaps in need of a reevaluation.)
Mind you, I know blurbing ain’t easy, and I’ve done plenty of it. I’d be curious to here other people’s experiences of asking for and, maybe more interestingly, writing blurbs. Blurbing is not reviewing–you are expected to do it for friends–and sometimes, sure, you really do want to give a book your enthusiastic imprimatur, and it is flattering; sometimes it is a matter of saying something true and kind “or at least not untrue and not unkind.” Sometimes you have to say no–whether you are too busy or do not feel there is anything useful you can say.
I’d love to see a moratorium on blurbs. As Ange mentioned, I tried to get away with no blurb on my last book–but then, that is a luxury a first-book book probably does not have. And I’d love to stop writing blurbs too–as a matter of policy–but then, I think of those writers who blurbed my own first book, some of whom did not know me from Eve’s left elbow, I just wrote them out the blue, and the generosity of that gesture, and I feel I should be willing to give back in that sense.
Blurbs can be useful–you can get a sense of the type of book in very broad-sweeping ways–Richard Wilbur is probably not going to be blurbing the same book as John Ashbery–though I’d certainly be keen to peek in a book that got the nod from both!
I’d love to see a poem or a longer excerpt from an intro or review on the backs of books. Here’s hoping…

By: Hannah

Hannah — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 23:44:21 +0000

Are Snark and Blurb in the employ of the anti-muses?
I hope so.

By: Steve Mackin

Steve Mackin — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 22:40:14 +0000

I have always loved the idea of the Community of Artists (I am a member of the Wednesday Night Martini Club). It makes me think of Shakespeare writing for the Company of Players, or the world that swirled around Pound. A number of years ago, in the early 90s, I was reading almost daily in the cafes and other venues in San Francisco. There was a reading somewhere in the City every night. There were quite a few regulars, and we became a pretty tight group. One of this Company, one Eli Shivers (real name, honest), decided that he was sick of paying taxes. To that end he hit upon the bright idea of starting a political party, The Poetry Party. We held a couple of meetings in Pacific Heights, at the beautiful home of the brilliant Laura Mann. It had a breathtaking view of the Bay and the Golden Gate, and was warm and comfortable. 20 to 30 poets showed up for each of these events, where we tried to hammer out our poetic platform and constitution (I believe I still have some of the notes stashed away in a pile of paper). At one of these meetings Big George T, self-styled hardcore street poet, inaugurated the convention by informing everyone that his dingy little apartment in the ratty old hotel down in a place he affectionately called Interzone (see Naked Lunch), had been burglarized, that he lost everything he had. Without a second thought we passed the hat and raised over $300 for George. Then, during the ensuing discussion about the platform, George told us that a true artist is always autonomous, and that a community of poets was impossible. The irony was too obvious. We never did come up with a platform or a constitution, and we never registered the Poetry Party. We may have been a close knit little band, but I swear you can’t get any two poets to agree on anything.

By: Simon DeDeo

Simon DeDeo — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 16:43:46 +0000

Linda Gregerson claims on the back of Catherine Barnett’s first book that, certain metaphysical issues aside, Catherine’s poems can “revive the dead.” Best. Blurb. Ever. I mean, how can you top that? I can’t even make fun of it (I tried) it is an etherial pillbug and rolls up when you touch it.
One blurb “scandal” yet unmentioned is that many prolific blurbers do not actually write the blurbs themselves, but simply allow their name to appear under a blurb written by the author.
All joking aside, I think poets should consider recruiting a critic to write a long interpretive passage to replace the blurbs on the back cover. One edition of James Merrils’ Divine Comedies does this and it’s wonderful.

By: Sheryl Luna

Sheryl Luna — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 15:47:26 +0000

I agree too! Too much in poetry has become business, marketing and schmoozing while the poems fall by the wayside. But honestly, there are a lot of glowing reviews written by pals or favor-trading-I-owe-you’s out there. This has been a real shock.

By: Jordan

Jordan — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 12:34:58 +0000

> go back to putting a poem on the back
Or an advertisement for the publisher’s other titles, say.

By: Ange

Ange — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 12:07:24 +0000

This reminds me of the stylish “anti-blurb” on the back of your book. There too you abjure any claim to “necessity” — have you ever had to defend that?
It would be wonderful if we could all go back to putting a poem on the back of a new book…

By: rachel hadas

rachel hadas — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 11:31:57 +0000

Brava again, Alicia. Dialogue is perfect for this. I am foggily forgetting who it was who reviewed
James Dickey in dialogue form, pro & con, back in the day…
and I esp. like the point about displaced figurative language finding a home in blurbs.
Blurbs have been a scandal for a long time – maybe a low-level scandal, but still…Maybe this will help a little.
What is the relation of Snark & Blurb to the Anti-Muses?

By: Rigoberto

Rigoberto — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 09:02:05 +0000

BRAVO! BRAVO! ENCORE!