Helen Vendler is def. fer sure the hack I suspected; or, why Kay Ryan is a ltd., pseudo-poet.

To read a review by Helen Vendler on Kay Ryan’s new dreck, is tantamount to being lowered into a vat of acid that will not kill one, only scald till one’s eyes bleed. Who selected this most unworthy poet as the Poet Laureate? I should have his job/head delivered to the local morgue for inspection. Anyways, Vendler selects [...]

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Renoir My Father by Jean Renoir

This is an excellent reissue by the New York Review of Books, but really though the NYRB does have some taste to share. Jean Renoir, acclaimed director, gives a life of his father, the estimable Impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Jean’s anecdotal style and laissez-faire remembrances are quite a treat. For the most part Renoir was against [...]

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Michael Wood on Zadie Smith in the NYRB

Michael Wood’s essay on Zadie Smith’s new collection of essays is depressing in its’ sprightliness. I guess only in the NYRB can one find the phrase “ideological inconsistency” used in a positive context. Saying that you should read bad literature to know what good is, is like saying I should drink Schlitz malted liquor instead [...]

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