Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Dude Check It Out (John Latta’s Blog)

John Latta’s blog is about the richest extant.In this post, he simply offers space to Tony Towle, to refute the ever shaky assertions of Kent Johnson. Hey, I remember Kent sending me a note saying he had satirized me in a book of his, and that I should buy the book. Well, at least he’s down with the concept of Internet marketing, id est: scamming (I do not think he even performed said satire, just looking for donors to his believability cult). Beyond that, Towle’s reminiscence as well as dispute is in-depth and resonant of that past age of giants and heroes. Thanks to JL.

1 comment:

Kent Johnson said...

Allen,

Found this. I did reply to Towle, which wasn't too hard to do, really. It was posted at Latta's blog a couple days after his letter. You should link, in fairness, to that too!

Anyway, in my introduction to the book (A Question Mark above the Sun) I develop a number of the reasons for the hypothesis of Koch's authorship. Hope you'll get a copy. A couple or three prominent O'Hara scholars have stated their support of the hypothesis's value (which doesn't mean they claim certainty about the poem's authorship--I don't either--just that there are highly unusual circumstances which justify the posing of some questions).

I honestly don't recall the specific exchange you mention above about a "satire," but I do know I had a fairly large number of new epigrams I'd planned to add to a second edition of my book Epigramititis: 118 Living American Poets. I decided to not do it. And I am pretty sure there is one for you there, more admiring, really, than satirical! In any case, it's not accurate to suggest I was trying to "scam" you, whatever it was we were talking about.

Kent