Blurbs should be attached to the backs of books with velcro. They're so generic and indistinguishable in their praise, that it would be a kind of efficient recycling to pull them off of the old books and to reapply them to newly released titles.
2 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Your observation "has a pure, economical force"[1] and is clearly "honed with a fine sensibility and a wit I find haunting"[2]. It is "amazingly meaningful"[3], demonstrates "linguistic verve matched only by ... rigorous control"[4], and "I have a huge admiration"[5] for it. It is at once "delicately made, intriguing in conception, unpredictable, balletic and swift"[6]. Small wonder that you are "one of the liveliest, most exciting writers in the world today"[7].
[1] Sean O'Brien on Carol Ann Duffy's The World's Wife [2] Mary Karr on Meghan O'Rourke's Halflife [3] Baha al-Din Kurramashahi on Robert Bly's translation of Hafez, The Angels Knocking on the Tavern Door [4] Stephen Burt on Karen Volkman's Nomina [5] Gerald Stern on Marilyn Hacker's translation of Venus Khoury-Ghata's She Says [6] August Kleinzahler on Sally Van Doren's Sex at Noon Taxes [7] The New York Times on Wole Soyinka's poetry (used as a blurb on the back of his collection Samarkand and Other Markets I Have Known
2 comments:
Your observation "has a pure, economical force"[1] and is clearly "honed with a fine sensibility and a wit I find haunting"[2]. It is "amazingly meaningful"[3], demonstrates "linguistic verve matched only by ... rigorous control"[4], and "I have a huge admiration"[5] for it. It is at once "delicately made, intriguing in conception, unpredictable, balletic and swift"[6]. Small wonder that you are "one of the liveliest, most exciting writers in the world today"[7].
[1] Sean O'Brien on Carol Ann Duffy's The World's Wife
[2] Mary Karr on Meghan O'Rourke's Halflife
[3] Baha al-Din Kurramashahi on Robert Bly's translation of Hafez, The Angels Knocking on the Tavern Door
[4] Stephen Burt on Karen Volkman's Nomina
[5] Gerald Stern on Marilyn Hacker's translation of Venus Khoury-Ghata's She Says
[6] August Kleinzahler on Sally Van Doren's Sex at Noon Taxes
[7] The New York Times on Wole Soyinka's poetry (used as a blurb on the back of his collection Samarkand and Other Markets I Have Known
good idea. i'm sure the first thing people do when asked to blurb is to run off and read other blurbs. Three sentences, five adjectives max.
smile
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