zodiac27 Jan 2004

It's different everywhere and every day. Most 'poets of note' get in the New Yorker at some point, I know that. But really the whole field's fragmented to the point of being meaningless. Everybody likes to flaunt their current local poets, who are generally little known outside of their region (Okay, Fred Chappell may be an exception from these parts, but Katherine Stripling Byer, anyone? Yet she's in the new Norton Modern Poetry) What it comes down to is we're more or less as famous as the latest North Atlantic all-star - that is, we get our poems read by maybe 20 people each. And we get fun comments, which they don't. As far as fiction, I read a lot of Carol Shields (whom you probably know,) and think she's one of the best writers of the last ten years. I recently read Bel Canto and thought it was good, and Francisco Goldman's two weird novels.