![]() |
Letters to the Editor |
|
Editor's Note
Concerning: The Real Jack Foley "Jack
Foley watches a new film"-- but I just watched Jack Foley, or, at
least, George Clooney, who plays him, in a rather old one, Out of Sight,
based on the Elmore Leonard novel. My mind began spinning, though
this may be due, in part, to all of the antihistamines I've been gobbling
in this, the worst pollen season, or so we're told, in
decades, at least down in south coastal Georgia. Mr. Foley
responds: "Jack
Foley" is also the inventor of the Foley process -- a post-production
sound-editing technique frequently used in films. A friend of mine lives
with an old Hollywood film editor who knew that Jack Foley. When I phone,
he regularly says to me, "You're not Jack Foley. I knew Jack
Foley." Someone
gave me a copy of the Elmore Leonard novel when it came out. The Jack
Foley of the novel has an ex wife named "Adele." (My wife is
"Adelle.") And there were a few other connections as well.
People were saying to me, "You know Elmore Leonard,
right?" But I don't. Pure serendipity. A friend of mine told Leonard
at a booksigning about the coincidences, so he signed a copy to me,
"To the real Jack Foley." Tell
that to George Clooney!
Dear Mr. Pritchard: A fully adequate extension of Frost's legacy is found in the later work of Richard Wilbur. If you aren't certain about this, see his "A Wall in the Woods" and
"Hamlen Brook." Mr.
Pritchard re Thank you for this referral, I'm an admirer of Mr. Wilbur's strong control of language and form, although I'm not sure that his work—though accomplished and admirable—necessarily stands up next to that of Frost and, I believe, Heaney. That being said, opinions do vary, and I am happy to return to Wilbur's work with this in mind. Concerning:
Lisa Butts’s review of recent chapbooks It doesn’t seem she is able to tell if a poem is shitty or not; she can only make historical/literary connections or complain about absent or unclear ones. SO WHAT? Gene Fendt, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Nebraska-Kearney Ms.
Butts re I’m
first of all a little taken aback by the brutishness of Mr. Fendt’s
phrasing; however, I would say my job as a critic and a scholar is to make
specific remarks about a poet’s place in the canon, possible
shortcomings, etc., not to make vast generalizations about overall
“shittiness” (“shittyness” perhaps? I don’t even know). It is
for readers to decide, based on my analysis, if they are intrigued and
care to look into the matter for themselves. Contemporary Poetry Review
is not, to me, a forum for the expression of my personal taste in a sort
of “thumbs up/thumbs down” type of rhetoric. If I encountered a review
that did operate on this level, I would find it reductive and
intellectually suspect. I’m sorry if this particular whoever-he-is
doesn’t find the traditional method of literary criticism as riveting as
a good cock fight, but it just happens to be something I believe in
respecting. Lisa Butts
|
|