Scar Tissue, Charles Wright's new book, is reviewed by the New York Times for its Sunday book review. I am generally not of fan of Charles Wright (except for his poem based on Piet Mondrian from Buffalo Yoga). Why point this out then? I am looking at the equivalent of the Sunday Review of Books at Le Monde, and, well, you will find there a review of Marie-Antoinette's new biography, something about evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould, a memoir by the Chechen writer Milana Terloeva, a feature of a law sponsored by the former Minister of Culture Jack Lang (Socialist) that saved bookstores, and so on. The last poetry review I saw there was months ago, featuring newly translated work by ... Charles Bukowski. Meanwhile, the last poetry reviews I saw on the NYT was last Sunday (can't quite remember which books). Basically, there is (almost) no mainstream coverage of contemporary French poetry. Zilch. Nada. (Okay, there is the magazine Lire, but their website is quite rudimentary, so I can't really say anything about its poetry coverage. And only a few people read Lire) Of course, there are other sources to get news about contemporary French poetry, such as Sitaudis. But that's not much. So, what's exciting about French poetry today? Who are the young new wave of French poets?
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I remember listening to a radio interview with CK Williams where he declared French poetry dead, something I half-agreed with (I also discussed this with Hoagland and Jen Grotz). But I don't think it is because it has taken a discursive tone since Mallarmé, but because it has become quite insulary there.