Apologies for that last. Rather than waste your time on William Kristol and Leo Strauss, can I instead suggest you ease your Monday-morning procrastinations with John Latta on William Logan on Frank O’Hara? Thanks.
From “The Energies of Words,” Peter O’Leary’s history of the famous 1931 “Objectivists” issue of Poetry:
For an issue that launched a movement, it’s not particularly memorable for its poetry, most of which was written by second-rate poets who happened to be friends of Zukofsky, or by now canonical poets who are not regarded as Objectivists, such as Williams, Bunting, or Kenneth Rexroth, a progenitor of the San Francisco Renaissance in the 1950s.
George Gissing, New Grub Street:
A few days ago her startled eye had caught an advertisement in the newspaper, headed ‘Literary Machine’; had it then been invented at last, some automaton to supply the place of such poor creatures of herself, to turn out books and articles? Alas! The machine was only one for holding volumes conveniently, that the work of literary manufacture might be physically lightened. But surely before long some Edison would make the true automaton; the problem must be comparatively such a simple one. Only to throw in a given number of old books, and have them reduced, blended, modernised into a single one for today’s consumption.
It’s hard to know if we have talent. Here and there, a drunken
grad student expresses admiration….
—Kent Johnson, “To John Bradley”
If you’re reading this, chances are you’ve probably already seen Linh Dinh’s encomium to Kent Johnson at the Harriet blog. If not, go have a look and remind yourself of what you already know—in Dinh’s words, “Kent Johnson is a deadly serious, brilliant subversive.”
Next,
Stay updated via RSS (Syndicate).