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Adios, Dennis O’Driscoll
Well now this is distressing. The Irish poet Dennis O’Driscoll has passed away at 58—a loss to the art, for sure. But worse is the notice from RTE News in Ireland, the writer of which managed to eke out just 67 words about the poet. Sixty-seven words for the author of nine poetry volumes and scads of intelligent, insightful essays.Read More
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Reading Into and the Avant-Garde
Jacket Magazine has published a peculiarly passive-aggressive 4,000-plus word response by Jeffrey Side to a 193 word statement by Seamus Heaney, quoted from Heaney’s interview with Dennis O’Driscoll as published in Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney. (The interview is no longer available online, alas.) Here is the Heaney excerpt; his initial “it” refers to the term “avant-garde”: It’s an old-fashioned term by now. In literature, nobody can cause bother any more. John Ashbery was a kind of avant-garde poet certainly and now he’s become a mainstream voice.Read More