From John Wilkinson’s fan letter-cum-review of Keston Sutherland’s “Hot White Andy,” a long poem first published in Chicago Review’s British Poetry Issue (53:1) and republished as a chapbook by Barque Press:
The present review seems to be the first of a poem I think the most remarkable poem in English published this century. Having seen the shell-shocked response of two very different audiences I am at a loss to account for the speechlessness unless we’ve been outdone in our jabber and feel abashed (I’m assuming there is some kind of operative ‘we’ about, I hope so). The poem is doing some work nonetheless. A passion for new British poetry was admitted to me more than a year after this poem had been detonated in their heads, by some graduate students on a major poetics program in the US. But given the absence of print or internet commentary, I feel compelled to write a fan letter rather than a critique, and to say a possible poetic future starts here — and if it doesn’t, I suppose I can go and grow vegetables.
“Hot White Andy,” a long poem by Keston Sutherland that was featured in Chicago Review’s British Poetry Issue, has earned its italics. The poem henceforth to be known as Hot White Andy is now available as a standalone chapbook from Barque Press for $10 (plus $3.50 for shipping).
Allow us to mention in extended passing that the British Poetry Issue of CR—which includes all of “Hot White Andy,” Sutherland’s “Roger Ailes,” nearly 80 pages of poetry by Andrea Brady, Peter Manson, and Chris Goode, critical essays on the work of all four poets, fifteen reviews of new British poetry, and everyone’s favorite poetry map—is still available for $12 (shipping included) at the Chicago Review website. What’s more, the unitalicized version of “Hot White Andy” includes a representation of the Andy Cheng Memorial Tower (above), which the new version does not.
But if you do decide to order Hot White Andy, you might as well pick up the new issue of QUID while you’re at it. QUID 18 (sometimes known as This is not “This Ain’t No Chicago Review”) gathers poetry from all four corners of Brighton and includes a very, very smart essay by Keston on the indigenous stupidity of poets. Yes, I said the indigenous stupidity of poets. You’ll have to read it.
Meshworks at Miami of Ohio (admirably managed by Keith Tuma, cris cheek, Justin Katko, and Daniel Ereditario) has some video posted of the Oxford (OH) leg of the British poets’ US tour. (Said poets being Andrea Brady, Keston Sutherland, and Peter Manson, all featured in the British Poetry Issue of Chicago Review.)
They’ve also got video of Sean Bonney, Mairéad Byrne, Tom Leonard, Bernadette Mayer, Stephen Rodefer, and Tom Raworth. Plus, footage from the Contemporary Experimental Women’s Poetry Festival at Cambridge last year.
My open (and terribly earnest) letter in response to some of David Baratier’s comments on the Buffalo POETICS list (which are archived here):
Since no one’s sprinting to our defense, I hope I can be forgiven for offering a brief response to David Baratier’s comments on recent issues of Chicago Review. (Though I write as a co-editor of the magazine, I don’t presume to speak for my fellow editors and staff members. The magazine is too small, too precariously assembled to tolerate a party line.)
I’d like to leave Mr. Baratier’s concerns about the Dorn issue to the side, since I wasn’t at the magazine then and can’t speak for Eirik, except to say his deep knowledge of and serious passion for Dorn’s work hardly qualifies him as a “dabbler.” And I can’t speak to whether our “entire tone has went to silence” or the poetry we publish “promotes inaction.” It’s true that we haven’t had any fan letters from the barricades, but I’m not sure that settles the case. For most people on this planet, the fact that we pay as much attention to poetry as we do would count as evidence for charge that we’re “out of step with the needs of the current age.”
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