When I visited Alan recently he told me he'd written a new essay that he was expecting to have trouble publishing b/c of its content. He sent me a copy of it at my request - it's entitled "THE DEA(R)TH OF POETRY" & it's critical of the lack of serious critical standards in poetry reviews. Too many reviews of poet friends' work that use superlatives only. That sort of thing. I'm slowly in the process of reading the essay now.

One of the reasons why I started reading the essay is b/c as I read Alan's work & try to review it I'm constantly stymied by trying to write something of substance. This, in itself, intrigues me. I don't HATE the work, I don't LOVE it. I can't even always pin down what I find difficult about it, I don't even necessarily FIND IT DIFFICULT - just inaccessible - I'm not always satisfied w/ my entry points.

Of course, Alan's a friend of mine. I don't want to give his writing short shrift, I want to PAY ATTN TO IT - in much the same way that I might want to pay attn to a friend during a conversation. After all, the reason WHY WE'RE FRIENDS is b/c I think HE'S GOT SOMETHING TO SAY FOR HIMSELF. Or whatever. You get the idea. At the same time, I hate bullshitting, I don't want to just say: this is great poetry, blah, blah - just to 'be a good friend'.

ANYWAY, I've at least ATTEMPTED to write SOMETHING of at least MINOR SUBSTANCE about every bk of Alan's I've read so far. Now I'm looking for what other people have written: "NAME": 20 ratings, mostly 5 stars, NO ACTUAL REVIEW OTHER THAN MY OWN; "Book 6": 6 ratings, all 5 stars, NO REVIEWS; "Book 5": 8 reviews, mostly 5 stars, NO REVIEW OTHER THAN MINE; "SIGNAGE": 6 reviews, mostly 5 stars, NO REVIEW OTHER THAN MINE; "Odes": 4 ratings, all 5 stars, NO REVIEWS; "Active 24 Hours": 5 ratings, 5 stars, NO REVIEW OTHER THAN MINE; "CANDOR": 4 ratings: 2 4 stars, 2 5 stars; NO REVIEW OTHER THAN MINE; "Book 3: Bad Dad": 3 ratings: mine: 3 stars, 1 4 stars, 1 5 stars, NO REVIEW OTHER THAN MINE!!

Ok, from the ratings you'd think that Alan's a highly respected writer - regarded as brilliant. SO WHY THE FUCK IS IT THAT THERE'S NOT A SINGLE REVIEW BY ANYONE ELSE OTHER THAN ME ON GOODREADS?! I mean, what the fuck?!, I'm the main person to even take the trouble to put the bk cover images online.

The 1st paragraph of "THE DEA(R)TH OF POETRY" asserts:

"Poetry is suffering from looking at itself with too much self satisfaction and too little critical acumen. It has signed a pact with the academy to produce what the latter wants to teach in exchange for being taught and for having poets taught by and then enfolded by that academy. It’s too slick."

This is followed by:

"I have a friend (Nick Piombino) who has more than once advised me to not write a book review unless I have good things to say about the book. Nick himself doesn’t write book reviews / which might be an indication of how many books of poetry he’s found to be worth reviewing (?!)."

Now, I don't quote this here to ridicule Nick. He's one of my GoodReads friends & I have no reason to think that he's not a fine fellow. BUT HE'S ALSO ONE OF THE PEOPLE WHO CONSISTENTLY GIVES ALAN'S BKS 5 STAR RATINGS HERE W/O A WORD OF EXPLANATION!! I really want to know WHY people supposedly like Alan's writing so much!

Do poets just think that all poets have such fragile egos that they can't take criticism? Do people praise Alan b/c they think he'll get too depressed if they don't?

"Adj. 1. mnemotechnic - of or relating to or involved the practice of aiding the memory; "mnemonic device". mnemonic, mnemotechnical.." - taken handily from an online source. Notice that it's MNEMOtechnical & NOT MNEMONOtechnics. Let's give Alan the benefit of the doubt here: this is NOT a typo. WHY "MNEMONOtechnics"? I don't know. I find nothing in the bk that I can easily relate to something "involved the practice of aiding the memory" & I'm not sure what's meant otherwise.

Strangely(?), though, I find more entry points here than in perhaps any of Alan's other work that I've read. There're 2 "technics" that immediately grab my attn: 1. There's no punctuation - 'instead' each phrase begins & ends w/ a capital letter; 2. neologisms are frequently used that involve adding an extra suffix that 'doesn't make sense' in conventional usage.

1. Having a phrase implied to be a sentence by having it begin capitalized is common, having it END w/ a capital instead of a period or question mark or exclamation mark ISN'T. I find this very effective in keeping the reading experience lively. It often leads to my reading the ending word as if it's the word MINUS the capt 1ST & then reading it W/ the cap 2nd: EG: "romP" becomes "rom" (ie: "read-only memory") & then "romp". "driveN" becomes "drive" "driven". Other examples have different levels of disruptiveness. Is this, to quote from the 1st p, a mnemonotechnic that "Tortures grammatical laxitY"? I think so. I only found one phrase that seems like it might be a mistake: "All gate". Is it?

2. "envoyedS": what's that "ed" doing in there? "humorlessest": est? "ambitionedly": wha?! "Highlinesed": "ed"? I love these words & the attempt-to-make-sense-of-them that reading them stimulates. If these, & the general word choices, are "mnemonotechnics" than I'm a fan!

NOW, will one of you slackers out there tell me what YOU think?! B/c otherwise, I might think that you don't think at all! (Of course, why the fuck shd you care about that, eh?)