The Changing Times
There is not much to say now, though of course there never was. Whatever was said was just a repetition, perhaps a slight rephrasing, of something someone already said, as this is, and as whatever is said after this will be. No one is fooling anyone, though that does not stop most people from pretending they're fooled, because pretending feels much better. Even if no one now feels much better than anyone ever did. It's not even hard for anyone to think things are different. In fact, the most amazing thing is just how easy it is to think anything at all.
- Craig Morgan Teicher, from Cradle Book
I have read 3 other books from this list and barring Nox (my opinion: fistful of paper hearts rolled in black glitter and dropped into the ocean) they are 75% of the time very boring (Sorry Don Paterson, Paul Muldoon). Anyone who doesn't have Nox on a top 10 list this year is going to look like they have been living in a cave, so I feel like at some point it will just be on every list just out of posterity. I have also seen good reviews of Cloud Corporation from people I share tastes with, I know I like Terrance Hayes already, and I'm curious about the rest, most of which I have on hold at the library right now. So I don't want to dismiss everything there. Just 4 of the 11 (Muldoon is there twice).
Anyway, my reaction to the list pretty much sums up how I feel about the magazine in general. I generally suspect they just have a scheduled rotation of Big Names like Charles Simic, Robert Pinsky, and "someone diverse like Ann Carson or maybe someone who is not white for a change." This is surely not what they think they are doing, but even when they run Ann Carson's stuff, it is not her best work.
A writhing multitude of "blah."
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