American Poetry and
the New York Times
Noted for the patriotic attention it gives to wholesome
American poetry, the New York Times
raised the bar by publishing David Orr’s review of Directing Herbert White: Poems (Graywolf, paper, $15) by the “all-around
celebrity” James Franco. David Orr claims
that Franco has 2.2 million Twitter followers. Orr might be appealing
indirectly to that audience as he asserts that Franco’s book “is the sort of
collection written by reasonably talented M.F.A. students in hundreds of M.F.A.
programs stretching from sea to shining sea.” If each of Franco’s Twitter
followers bought a copy of Directing
Herbert White, Graywolf would be pleased and Franco would be amused.
America would set a publishing record unmatched anywhere in the world.
Unfortunately, David Orr spoils the fantasy with the “total
slaughter” of a penultimate sentence in his Sunday
Book Review piece of July 17 (online) and July 20 (print): “Poetry is the
weak sister of its sibling arts, alternately ignored and swaddled like a 19th
–century invalid, and that will change only by means of a long, tedious, and
possibly futile effort at persuasion.”
Jerry W. Ward, Jr.
July 18, 2014
