November 3, 2002
BARFLY/BARD:
No Great L.A. Poets? Every Barfly in Town Knows Bukowski (Bill Press, November 3 2002, LA Times)President Bush has finally taken all this war talk one step too far. Now he's declared war on Los Angeles.Bush didn't attack L.A. himself. He delegated the dirty work to one of his lieutenants: poet Danny Gioia, Bush's nominee for chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts.
A writer of well-crafted but mundane poems, Gioia came out firing right after his nomination. Speaking to reporters, Bush's pet poet said he had been misquoted in the Los Angeles Times last fall as saying that no great poet ever came out of California. It wasn't California that was lacking; it was Los Angeles.
"Los Angeles is perhaps the only great city in the world that has not yet produced a great poet," he said.
This is war! And this is wrong. Hasn't he ever heard of Charles Bukowski?
Hate to say it, but Mr. Press is right on this one. We particularly recommend Run with the Hunted. Posted by Orrin Judd at November 3, 2002 1:04 PM
Yep. But are Gioia's poem's really "mundane", or does Press think so only because they're "well crafted"?
Heck if I know, I've never read any of his stuff.
I guess there will be lots of nasty potshots at Gioia's artistics efforts while he's in.
The whole thing is kind of snide about Bush & Gioia.
Posted by: oj at November 3, 2002 5:11 PMbukowski is a pig, and not a very amusing or original pig. so there.
Posted by: mammabird at November 4, 2002 1:26 AMPig yes, but reasonably amusing--he does after all get the tar beat out of him in half the stories.
Posted by: oj at November 4, 2002 7:26 AM