Thursday 19 August 2010

a true account

For a first class refutation of Kent Johnson’s thesis: that Kenneth Koch was the real author of Frank O’Hara’s poem ‘A True Account of Talking to the Sun at Fire Island’, I’d urge those interested to read Tony Towle’s letter, reproduced on John Latta’s blog. What interests me about this case is the readiness among many to believe in the possibility of forgery. Certainly in the age of the web we are only too aware of occasions for ‘appropriation’, but I think the desire to believe Johnson’s ‘true account’ of the ‘True Account’ has a lot more to do with those propensities the editors of tabloids have made steady use of for decades.

5 comments:

Kent Johnson said...

Laurie,

I hope you'll read my response to Towle, which will be going up on Monday at Isola di Rifiuti.

Kent

Kent Johnson said...

I don't really see why you would have deleted my comment on the forthcoming response by me at Isola di Rifiuti? It was just an informational note for those who may be interested in following the discussion with an open mind.

Really, that is too bad.

Kent

Laurie Duggan said...

Kent, I didn't delete it (as you can now see). It's just that I'm not a screen tragic: I don't look at my mail every day.

Kent Johnson said...

My apologies, Laurie.

I thought I saw the comment go up. I obviously confused it with something else!

thank you. I hope you and readers will consider my response to Tony Towle on Monday. There has been discussion about the issue at David Lehman's Best Am. Poetry blog as well.

Kent

Anonymous said...

i really don't care who wrote it
its a good poem
that's enough for me
pete spence