Perhaps this is better suited for two posts, but who doesn’t like a melange?  It’ll be like Spumoni ice cream!

Johnathon’s last post has me wanting to read “The Anthologist.”  For another novel that takes a (fairly unflattering) look at the psyche and process of the poet, give Orhan Pamuk’s “Snow” a try.  At over 400 pages, it might make the most verbose of poets tremble, but it’s such a beautiful novel with an almost palpable sense of place.

Second, I have to admit right now to reading the letters section of each Poetry magazine before getting into the commentary.  Like most self-disrespecting poets, I’ve got a bit of the weasel in me, and I like to see who’s starting fights or who’s ending them.

This month, I rather enjoyed Kevin Young’s response to a letter asking why he chose to use the “irritating” ampersand in his poem “The Mission.”

As a former raging anti-ampersander (can I get one of those for Christmas?) I know what motivated the original letter, but Young’s response is refreshingly fair.

Carolyn Guinzio discussed the ampersand in an interview with our own Ashley Anna McHugh a few months back, and I’m pretty sure this is a topic that gets people’s poetic hackles up in a twist.

For that matter, so does egregious mixing of metaphor.