Features April 2013
The bitter fool
On the place for satire in contemporary poetry.
Dost thou know the difference, my boy, between a bitter fool and a sweet fool?
—Fool, King Lear
It takes all sorts of in- and outdoor schooling
To get adapted to my kind of fooling.
—Robert Frost
Poetry has become so docile, so domesticated, it’s like a spayed housecat lolling in a warm patch of sun. Most poets choose to play it safe, combining a few approved modes in a variety of unexceptional ways: lyrical, pastoral, whimsical, surrealist, lyrical-pastoral, pastoral-surrealist, interior-lyrical, whimsical-lyrical-interior-surrealist, and so on. These poems feel at home in coffee shops and on college campuses; they circulate breezily among crowds of like-minded poems and all of them work hard to be liked. (They are also beloved of prize committees and radio hosts.) Not since the Edwardians has a period style...
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