Best American Pestilence?

...for I say at the core of Democracy...

Despite our clean track record—not one poem accepted for publication here, to which, what should I say?, that we’re proud of it?!—Emily Lloyd has commissioned the editorial staff of Little Emerson to edit BAP 2006. (Hear that Mr. Lehman?!) Well, almost. Emily’s suggestion is in response to Seth Abramson’s concerns about the “false advertising” nature of BAP. Seth thinks poets ought to protect the general reading public (????) from such schemes. Has anyone told Seth that all’s fair in war and love? I’m afraid it is.

And so I wonder: what makes BAP04 anything more than a pestilent form of ‘propaganda’ for the American poetry community, and even (dare I say) for America's reading public as a whole?

BAP sells, Seth. Though I’m not good with numbers[1] (else why would I choose to be the laughing stock by attempting Little Emerson) I gather—someone please give me figures—that BAP is by far the largest selling book of poetry in America year in and year out. It must be worth something, no? David Lehman, for one, thinks so.

Damaging to poetry? To “America’s reading public as a whole”? Ebola, who I imagine to be one of President Bush’s speech writers, is damaging to the general public, but BAP, c’mon, that’s what I call mere influenza. And you know what? It might be worth catching this sort of virus or two by some of those folks that comprise our esteemed reading public.

And I’ll conclude with this: if BAP is so bad, so false, so pestilent, why is it that our most renowned and admired poets—regardless of school or movement—rush, trip and fall to edit it? You see? BAP can’t be all that bad for you. Surely not bad for some.

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[1] Lisa Gluskin, ex-math club v.p., has encouragingly noted about Little Emerson: “So what we're looking at, if each of the 9 editors picks 50% of submissions, is a likelihood of approximately one over 2 to the ninth, which is one in 512. Or, with a much more probable chance of each editor picking 10% of submissions (one over 10 to the ninth) - an approximate likelihood of one in a billion. Of course, this doesn't dismiss some very interesting questions about the possible qualities (positive or negative) of a poem that 10 different people might like enough to publish. Whether we'll even see that poem, however....”