[New-Poetry] Billy hates 'cicadas'

[jforjames at aol.com]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article/article?f=/c/a/2007/08/03/DDH5RBT9Q2.DTL


Jon Carroll

Friday, August 3, 2007
There is always ferment in the world of poetry, probably because there is rarely money in the world of poetry (absent the eccentric bequest), so turmoil is the only recreation available. Here David Lehman, the general editor of the Best American Poetry series, lays it out in his preface to the 2006 edition: 


"Some poets share a resistance to popularity - other people's popularity, above all - though they might bristle if you called them elitist. It's a problem that afflicts all of us to some extent. We say we want real readers, who buy our books as an act of choice, yet should one in our party escape the poetry ghetto, we tremble with ambivalence, as if having real readers means a sure loss in purity." 


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