[New-Poetry] Ask not for whom the blurbist blurbs

[David Graham]

I've never bought a book solely on the basis of a blurb, I don't  
think, but certainly blurbs have often done their job and gotten me  
to open books up when I'm skimming the store shelves or the  
electronic equivalent.  I don't look down my nose at them generally,  
nor do I value them overmuch.  I use blurbs for range-finding; know  
just how much I trust Jorie Graham's effusions, to pick an easy  
example--and know how seldom her taste these days tends to coincide  
with my own.  A book blurbed, say, by Ashbery, Graham, and Donald  
Revell--well, it would be very unlikely to end up in my shopping cart.

*Asking* for blurbs is of course a major pain, and I'd gladly  
dispense with the whole thing just out of embarrassment and sloth.   
Publishers do seem to favor them, though.  I've even written a few  
when asked, and have enjoyed the challenge.

My all-time favorite blurb occurred without any effort on my part,  
when U Mass Press lifted some a couple sentences from an essay I  
published on Robert Francis.  There I am below the photo of Francis,  
nicely sandwiched between Richard Wilbur and Marianne Moore. . . .   
That felt wonderful.



On Sep 1, 2006, at 10:29 AM, almaginnes at aol.com wrote:

> Last time I had a book about to come out, I suggested that we do  
> away with hte blurbs. I don't have that many high profile poet  
> friends anyway, and I'd pretty much used up the ones I do have. And  
> blurbs are mostly filler. The publisher didn't agree. as it turned  
> out, only one of the three who agreed to do it got the blurb in on  
> time, so hte book came out with one blurb under a bad photo of me.
>
>

==========================================
David Graham
grahamd at ripon.edu
Home Page:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
Poetry Library:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
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