turn to poetry

Note to celebrities who turn to poetry: Leave it to the poets, those language toilers who will never have the least measure of your fame.

blotting himself out

Publishing and publishing more, he was publishing himself into anonymity.

acknowledged after

If history holds, there will be some lesser known poets more known a generation or two hence.

totally emily

The Emily Dickinson industry—is a thing.

ignored or eclipsed

Maybe it’s not that certain poets get neglected; perhaps it’s a matter of a few poets garnering too much attention and praise.

only names now

They are names only now, in that sad slow almost silent ten years that precedes a poet’s death.

phenom poet

They had made her so famous so fast that no one would ever take her seriously. She was now phenomenon, not a person.

local fame

He was famous in a group of about ten poets.

be quoted or die

Literary fame is measured by being oft-quoted.

poetry got small

Like the character Norma Desmond from the 1950 film Sunset Boulevard, she was the kind of poet you could imagine responding to an interviewer who'd suggested her reputation had faded, with the line: “I am big. It’s poetry that got small.”

against fiat

Critical reputations are made on grand claims. Yet I’m suspicious of all grand claims, finding hedged hypotheses sufficient to most subjects, conjectures able to brush past any exceptions.

too well represented

Any poet with an agent will likely be forgotten in the next generation.

you're a superstar

Simon & Schuster’s book publicity states that Michael Robbins is a “superstar poet.” I did not know that.

few maxims

Clearness is the ornament of deep thought.

Obscurity is the kingdom of error.

Few maxims are true in every respect.

It is of no use to possess a lively wit if it is not of right proportion: the perfection of a clock is not to go fast, but to be accurate.

I do not approve the maxim which desires a man to know a little of everything. Superficial knowledge, knowledge without principles, is almost always useless and sometimes harmful knowledge.

The favorites of fortune and fame topple from their pedestals before our eyes without diverting us from ambition.

It is easy to criticize an author; it is difficult to appreciate him.

As there are many soldiers, and few brave ones, so there are many versifiers and almost no poets.

—Marquis de Vauvenargues (1715–1747), Selections from the Characters, Reflexions, and Maxims
Translated by Elizabeth Lee (Archibald Constable & Co., 1903)

but drowning

He was a poet of the moment. The last time I saw him he was waving.

time lapse

Browsing through old anthologies should be enough to humble even the proudest poet. Not only because a few great poems remain…but because so many names have evaporated in time.

known unknown

To twist Stevens’ assertion: The poet must resist celebrity almost successfully.

room full of ghosts

The necessary arrogance of youth: “I look at those names in the anthology, and it just makes me sad. It's like a room full of ghosts."

From Oliver Stone’s film Any Given Sunday...
The young quarterback, Willie Beaman, after glancing at photos of past football greats, says: “I look at those pictures on the wall, and it just makes me sad. It’s like a room full of ghosts.”

fame by such means

Early on he planned on becoming a famous poet. Oh well.

until the name alone would suffice

The length of a poet’s bio is in inverse relationship to the size of her/his reputation.