Frederick Seidel: "Women are Objects, Sexual and Otherwise" @12:10 PM
The new Paris Review has a long interview with poet Frederick Seidel by FSG president Jonathan Galassi; a small excerpt is online. (This is a much better match-up than the hideous choice of Katie Roiphe to interview Gay Talese in the last issue!) I love Seidel, despite that I usually reflexively (and properly) dislike many born-rich artists. And, you know, the Harvard set. Among other great moments of the interview, Seidel reveals the contents of a letter from Ezra Pound, regarding the incoming president of Harvard (that would be Nathan Pusey, in 1953, who was then rather liberal but whose liberal views were outpaced, let's say, by the changing country). This letter from Pound said: "Only you can save Harvard from that kikesucking Pusey," which, wow. But let us turn to the part where Seidel discusses Issues with Ladies. READ MORE 24
It Turns Out Being A Poet Is A Terrible Thing @2:00 PM
I did not know that the Poet Community was so dark, devious and dangerous! But here is a recollection by a former New York poet, in which it is revealed that being a poet is to enter a world of horror, ill behavior and general heinousness: "There was another night when I made out with a Boston Lyrical Poet and assistant to another Star Teacher, as rain fell on Lower Broadway. We stood there inside a doorstop of an abandoned building that is now a J. Crew. She later confessed to me that she was the Mistress of a Famous Dimple-Chinned Nonfiction Writer. She would arrange visits to artist colonies at the same time as him, meet on corners in Queens. For those few months we dated, I could claim the title of Other Man in an Affair with the Mistress of a Famous Dimple-Chinned Nonfiction Writer. This title and others delighted and wearied me as the years went by." And that is the nice part. 10
