Greatest Living Poet

* The New York Times Book Review reviews poetry books once every blue Zadie Smith--so we're looking for substance and value here, kids. Next Week's ish offers Joel Brouwer's smurfy Ishmael Reed as Planet extended-metaphor-disguised-as-a-review (I need to stop doing these
this-and-that-connected-by-a-dash-nonword-words because it's really freaking out my white space) which does its gosh darn diddliest to irk in all the look-at-me ways that most poetry reviews suck (and the NYTimes weary about running them, prob). We come to find in the article how Joel's *students* feel about Reed's poems, too (confused, bewildered, horny, something like that). Golf-clapping! Nevermind a litany of the planet, the atmosphere, the aura, the upper atmospheric gases that block out the metaphoric twin suns, the weak way of talking about this book (as a way of saying he's so original! His poems have a *gravity* unlike the poems of other, you know, poems). Sun Ra is from Mars and Ishmael Reed is from Chattanooga! Woo! (Would the planet metaphor have be rooooolled out for a white poet? Readings are unclear, captain). Ugh, ugh and fucking ugh. Roll tide, Joel. There's just enough methane on your meteoriffic missive to sustain my ur-boredom! Do a level 5 diagnostic, why dontcha.

posted by Jim Behrle  #