Asking for blurbs with your hat in your hand is no fun — it puts the “cap” in capitalism (haha), and forces us to momentarily acknowledge that there’s more to artistry than art. But when your favorite poets read and seem to genuinely like your book, it all becomes worthwhile. I don’t know if anyone ever buys a book based on a blurb, but the legitimization of obtaining an idol’s stamp of approval does have a personal significance that’s hard to describe, but probably easy to imagine.
Anyway, this new blurb from Gregory Orr came with a very nice letter, which I’ll have forever. I’ve never met anyone who’s more fully and honestly passionate about poetry than Greg — if I’m ever feeling uninspired, or if I start thinking that poetry is unimportant, I go back and reread his interview in Rattle #24. That his two most recent books are love songs to poetry itself couldn’t be more fitting. He lives it. So his endorsement, to me, is particularly meaningful:
In American Fractal, Timothy Green braids together an alert and nimble intelligence, a liveliness of phrasing, a polished sense of form, and a whimsical surrealism—braids them and brings them to bear on our contemporary world. The result, poem after poem that sidles up to the truth and smacks it on the lips or, playfully or in earnest, upside the head.
–Gregory Orr