I was intrigued by the title of this poem, taken verbatim from a movie of inestimable cinematic value, and since the right bait will catch any fish, or at least make the fish bite, I bit. Despite trying, my experience may go down as more addition to that everlasting question of whether it is the writer or the reader’s fault if a work is not understood.

Persius, the Latin Satirist, affected Obscurity for another Reason; with which however Mr. Cowley is so offended, that writing to one of his Friends, You, says he, tell me, that you do not know whether Persius be a good Poet or no, because you cannot understand him; for which very Reason I affirm that he is not so. —The Spectator (London), No. 379 (May 15, 1712)

While I may not “get it” myself, “Alien vs. Predator” was enough of a success that it has now been published this year in an eponymous collection of the poet’s work. Why, then, do I not comprehend a word of it?

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Going Rogue: An American Life by Sarah Palin (Harper Collins, 2009)

Seeing this cover at a library’s second-hand book shop, I found it striking enough to take a closer look at it. Because a book review of such a work as this would be superfluous at this point, I thought I would at least comment on the cover design of the book.

I comment on the cover art because, to start with, covers of books are really a form of art, designed by professionals using photography, graphic design, drawing, etc. As such, I think it would be fair to examine our example here critically. I realize, of course, a cover of a book is not designed to be fine art, but I still hold it is open to criticism to the extent it holds itself out to the public. Remember that

To Judge, and Offend, are distinct offices, and of opposéd natures.

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Review of “Say Not What If” by Andrew Friedman (CreateSpace, 2011; originally published in 2007).

“Dear Mr. Bell: I have found a new book of poetry online, and since I know you write verse yourself I thought it might be of some interest to you. The book consists of only one poem, perhaps we should call it an epic poem, a form I thought was extinct at least since Stephen Vincent Benet’s John Brown’s Body. The author describes his work in his marketing “blurb”:

Say Not What If? is a nearly 10,000 word story written as a long rhyming poem. It is about a man on death row, and has as its theme the concept that time is our most valuable commodity. The story has characters and dialogue, and is extremely easy to read and understand, regardless of whether you have a GED or a PHD. No special knowledge of or ability to read poetry is required.

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Persuasion by Fiction: Some Poems from The New Formalist, Volume IX, Number 1

Looking at the latest published English-language poetry, on several major sites and publications, I found that every last one of them was in free verse. Modern style, no rules—too cool for school. But lately, to my complete surprise, I ran into something called The New Formalist and found a collection of contemporary poetry written in with traditional form, meter, and rhyme.

I would not myself choose the term “formalist”, since it strikes me as a bit pejorative, implying that the default behavior is to be informal—and there is no group I know of that call themselves “informalists” to balance the term out. I fully understand the necessity of these terms since verse today with meter and rhyme (that is, adhering to form) is now the extreme exception and not the rule, and as such, requires apologies, explanations, and prefixes to excuse its non-modernist prosody. 

Now, so delighted I am by my findings of this publication, allow me my criticism of these selected poems from the collection:

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