January 8, 2006
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I’ll Bet His Hand Trembled Just a Little When He Hit ‘Send’
Whoah. David Orr’s take on Billy Collins’ latest book of poetry in the NYT this week is one bold book review.
One glance at it and you will understand what I mean.
At first I thought it was going to be totally annoying — like, oh cute, it’s written as a poem. But it turned out to be thoughtful and good. I cannot even imagine the guts it takes to write a review in this format, especially when you are trying to be somewhat smart and sincere.
(For the record: I love Billy Collins. I also love the NYT’s book review RSS feed.)
Posted January 8, 2006 at 9:29 | Comments (3) | Permasnark
File under: Books, Writing & Such, Briefly Noted
File under: Books, Writing & Such, Briefly Noted
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I'm speechless. Such an innovative and still coherent commentary. I love it even though he's criticizing my one true poetic love.
I'm speechless. Such an innovative and still coherent commentary. I love it even though he's criticizing my one true poetic love.
One knock on Billy Collins (alluded to or stated in Orr's mention of "conversational free verse") is that there isn't really anything properly poetic in his use of language -- i.e., that he might as well be writing in prose. So Orr's easy use of somewhat random stanza breaks, usually tercets (and quatrains when he calls for a random quatrain) quickly turns his critical prose into Collinsian poetry.
Marjorie Perloff has a nice critique of Robert Pinsky's similar use of conventional language and free verse structures in this dialogue with Robert von Hallberg, one of my teachers at U of C.
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