Coda: Regarding the poetic world as seen uniformly by Victor Infante, Derrick Brown and others.

For the sake of inclusion, here's a link to Victor Infante's public rifle-butting of me--as included on my Facebook page/wall: http://www.facebook.com/#!/note.php?note_id=10150115147426192

And now, I'll go ahead and mention some inconsistencies/behavioral quirks shared by the good, think-alike people that Victor namechecks:
1. I've been told in the past that it's not good to self-publish.  This doesn't stop Rick Lupert from putting out his own books under the Ain't Got No Press moniker (mitigating factor: Rick occasionally does anthologies like the recommended-by-me POETS HAGGADAH).

2. I am not supposed to criticize Amber Tamblyn's poetry books (apparently because she's smart, hip and successful)--but it's okay for, say, G. Murray Thomas to use his review column on Poetix.net to knock Billy Collins' recent BALLISTICS.  Yes, Murray thought Collins' work in BALLISTICS was subpar.  But it was hard not to smell the jealousy on Murray's part--Oh, why oh why doesn't my print-on-demand volume COWS ON THE FREEWAY get at least one-tenth the attention Billy Collins does?

3. I'm certainly not supposed to criticize anyone who "hasn't done anything" to me.  By that logic, if Victor Infante was an HBO executive, he'd be telling Bill Maher to stop being "mean" on REAL TIME.

And, of course, if I say anything about the self-described wonderful people of LA/LBC/OC that is not wonderful, then I'm blessed with accusations of mental illness and--in one ugly case--a false accusation that I might be a wife-beater.

I'm just puzzled that all these self-described wonderful-and-successful poets of LA/LBC/OC are so insecure that they feel the need to take me so deadly-serious that they engage in shut-him-up-no-matter-what-it-takes reactions rather than having some sense of nuanced thought and perspective about their actual place and impact in both the real and literary worlds.

Reacting to the small amount of Amber Tamblyn's BANG DITTO I read.

In an earlier post, I mentioned that I saw Amber Tamblyn read poems at a Newer Poets Reading at the Downtown Los Angeles Public Library two or three years ago. She wasn't bad at all (I especially liked a piece about a teenage love affair of hers), but I wasn't moved to purchase any of her writings afterwards.

[At this point, I realize that I live in a glass house where criticism is concerned. So I'll try to avoid unnecessary roughness toward's Ms. Tamblyn's work.]

Last night, I read a little of Ms. Tamblyn's latest book of poetry BANG DITTO at a Barnes and Noble in Santa Monica--and thought of those sanitized expressions that Meredith Willson included in THE MUSIC MAN, i.e. "Great Honk!" and "Ye Gods!"

My tiny sampling of her poetry, a few years on, struck me as somewhat turbocharged in its pretension and aspirations to Greatness.

And perhaps Ms. Tamblyn wants to pursue Art and Beauty and Truth (she's been praised by poet Jack Hirschman and is now in a relationship with Smart Comic David Cross) to make up for any disappointments in her acting career (her critically-praised indie film STEPHANIE DALEY didn't break through even to an arthouse audience and the quirky-cop series she did for Disney/ABC last spring is now history).

I just hope she won't try so hard to Impress in her next book.