Tuesday, December 27, 2011

From the mailbag:

The end of the year does not mean the mailbag is overflowing with copies of Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners.

"RHE, have you ever wonder why nobody cares? Maybe because no one can understand ennything you say?"

I have. There was this one guy, once, who understood something I said, but he died.


"Yo, could you write a sestina about Un ballo in maschera ?"

Yo. No.


"Who's better, Auden or Frost?"

Lou Brock. I'd give up Ernie Broglio just to get him on my team.

4 comments:

karensomethingorother said...

It's true: I could really use some helpful footnotes--the kind that came in my uni texts that helped me feel smart whilst reading Tennyson, Browning, etc.

Richard Epstein said...

No footnotes. Instead you get a rerun of one of my favorite anecdotes, the one all my friends are sick of. Faulkner was speaking at the University of Virginia. A woman said to him, "Mr. Faulkner, I've read The Sound and the Fury 7 times, and I still don't understand it. What should I do?" "Read it again," said Faulkner.

I may have the number wrong. Maybe it was 8 times.

Richard Epstein said...

Or you could read my poem "Notes for the Volume Left Unfinished," which is made up entirely of footnotes. No quarter. No mercy. (No readers.)

karensomethingorother said...

Richard, I have a headache now. How about I just hang my head in defeat? OH WAIT! I do google things quite a bit! Grace à dieu pour Google.