← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Polish Noble
Thread ID: 20015 | Posts: 1 | Started: 2005-09-05
2005-09-05 11:22 | User Profile
Collected Poems: 1952-1999 by Robert Mezey Edition: Paperback Price: $22.00
Stop the Hate
Though dishonourably discharged from the US Army during the Korean Conflict, and though expelled from Franklin & Marshall College in 1965, after having urged his students to burn their draft cards, Robert Mezey has matured into a conservative of sorts, a neo-kahn, if you will. And his poetry mirrors these developments. He no longer writes the amorphous and utterly forgettable free verse of his youth, but has redefined himself as a formalist, whose greatest poetic achievements are translations from the Spanish of Jorge Luis Borges, translations that the great Argentinean bard's widow found unworthy of the originals, but which Mr. Mezey has published in this volume as imitations anyway.
He writes plenty of sonnets now and occasional exercises in other forms, where he ultimately finds a way to show his contempt and hatred for the people who tamed and built America, the same people who magnanimously opened their arms to his forefathers when they fled Europe's shetls with, no doubt, tears in their eyes.
"I make a lot of money and I have a perfect tan; I wear Armani clothing, I'm a very fancy Dan; I've dominated women ever since the world began--- Yes, I'm phallocentric, logocentric, Eurocentric Man!"
From "Eurocentric Rag"
Like the late Anthony Hecht, whose villains always have blue eyes and blond hair, Mr Mezey is not very good at hiding his hate.
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