If you are willing to let me be insufferable for a little while it would be my privilege to try to convince you that Bob Dylan is The Great American Artist. Half joking, but also....
I know it was meant humorously but the “never heard of [writer] just made you sound incurious. I had to remind myself it was flippant on purpose. Nelly Sachs was a Holocaust refugee who wrote poems with titles like O Chimneys. Her win was probably political but her work is still good. Seferis and Elytis are both Greek poets who wrote some great shit.
N’gugi should win every year. You’re probably right that it will go to Rushdie - who deserves it for Shame, Midnight’s Children, and Satanic verses - but not for being stabbed and writing a memoir about it. But, Iran and Israel war will make this a weirdly political turn.
Thank you for your comment. I appreciate you taking the time to read through what I wrote, and for taking it seriously enough to respond to it.
You're right those comments were flippant on purpose and meant in jest. I take your point though. I'll push back slightly by pointing out under Nelly Sachs I write that I should do better at reading women who have won the Nobel prize. In the comments I asked for Seferis recommendations. To me that isn't incurious.
My assumption is that everyone who has won the Nobel Prize has written some great shit, but it's not possible to have read it all. I felt it was important to be honest about what I knew and didn't know. I could have looked up Nelly Sachs and provided a wikipedia type summary of her life and work, but that would be redundant because wikipedia has already done it. More than that, I follow awards like the Nobel prize, but I don't take them very seriously. It's an internal contradiction I can't reconcile. Spending a lot of time writing about Nobel prize winning authors while being purposefully flippant was an attempt at expressing my contradiction.
Also, I'm not an authority on anything and I have no interest in pretending to be one. Pointing out how many writers I'd never heard of was a way to underscore my ignorance. I apologize if it didn't sit well with you.
I was wrong about Rushdie, but I was right that N'gugi, Everett, and Xue wouldn't win. I guess that counts.
Han Kang is a good call imho. Thanks, again for your comment.
Poetry Foundation has a nice set of his poems, and his Paris Review interview is great. Like you, I'm not a huge poetry guy, but Seferis (and Seamus Heaney) somehow — in the words of a great American poet — "melt my cold, cold heart."
If you are willing to let me be insufferable for a little while it would be my privilege to try to convince you that Bob Dylan is The Great American Artist. Half joking, but also....
I'm all ears!
I know it was meant humorously but the “never heard of [writer] just made you sound incurious. I had to remind myself it was flippant on purpose. Nelly Sachs was a Holocaust refugee who wrote poems with titles like O Chimneys. Her win was probably political but her work is still good. Seferis and Elytis are both Greek poets who wrote some great shit.
N’gugi should win every year. You’re probably right that it will go to Rushdie - who deserves it for Shame, Midnight’s Children, and Satanic verses - but not for being stabbed and writing a memoir about it. But, Iran and Israel war will make this a weirdly political turn.
Thank you for your comment. I appreciate you taking the time to read through what I wrote, and for taking it seriously enough to respond to it.
You're right those comments were flippant on purpose and meant in jest. I take your point though. I'll push back slightly by pointing out under Nelly Sachs I write that I should do better at reading women who have won the Nobel prize. In the comments I asked for Seferis recommendations. To me that isn't incurious.
My assumption is that everyone who has won the Nobel Prize has written some great shit, but it's not possible to have read it all. I felt it was important to be honest about what I knew and didn't know. I could have looked up Nelly Sachs and provided a wikipedia type summary of her life and work, but that would be redundant because wikipedia has already done it. More than that, I follow awards like the Nobel prize, but I don't take them very seriously. It's an internal contradiction I can't reconcile. Spending a lot of time writing about Nobel prize winning authors while being purposefully flippant was an attempt at expressing my contradiction.
Also, I'm not an authority on anything and I have no interest in pretending to be one. Pointing out how many writers I'd never heard of was a way to underscore my ignorance. I apologize if it didn't sit well with you.
I was wrong about Rushdie, but I was right that N'gugi, Everett, and Xue wouldn't win. I guess that counts.
Han Kang is a good call imho. Thanks, again for your comment.
Don’t sleep on Seferis :)
What would you recommend reading by him?
Poetry Foundation has a nice set of his poems, and his Paris Review interview is great. Like you, I'm not a huge poetry guy, but Seferis (and Seamus Heaney) somehow — in the words of a great American poet — "melt my cold, cold heart."
Thanks! I'll read his poetry foundation poems and commence heart melt.