tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11921782.post112950807299243392..comments2023-07-30T07:20:00.952-05:00Comments on Say Something Wonderful: Spanked!E. M. Selingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00426524354823232002noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11921782.post-1129566605607326692005-10-17T11:30:00.000-05:002005-10-17T11:30:00.000-05:00Eric ol' bean--You don't have to pretend to be Ann...Eric ol' bean--<BR/><BR/>You don't have to pretend to be Ann Coulter just because you don't like a poem -- indeed, it's likely to provoke me to pretend to be Jane Fonda. And neither of us look very good in those skirts.<BR/><BR/>The poem offers me a compact array of pleasures, most of them rather minor: I like the awkwardness (not necessarily "prissiness") of the obscenities, the degree to which they are precisely *not* natural-sounding. (Indeed, one of the oddities of the poem is that it works most naturally if imagined in the voice of someone who doesn't speak English as a first language --which might by HP's impression of Americans, who knows?) I like the very slight off-centeredness of some of the phrases. I like the flatness of "It works" and "We did it." I like the minor (you would say "cheap" & would probably be right) payoff of the last line.<BR/><BR/>Pinter is not a very good poet. Period. This particular poem has been all over the internet as part of the inevitable pillorying of the Nobel committee as anti-American Euro-liberals. I kinda enjoyed it. Oh yeah, and football ("American" football) has always made me physically sick -- no cliché.<BR/><BR/>Love and kisses from the politburo,<BR/>MarkMark Scrogginshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01431113440875342809noreply@blogger.com