The Cartoon & Poem Supplement

"I can neither confirm nor deny"

Poems:

“A Sunset” by Robert Hass: For better and worse, this feels like an old left-liberal man talking at you about his political perspective for quite a while. Better because Hass’ Beat-with-deodorant style has its charms; the beginning is really great (“used” can be misread at first, tripping you up in a productive way) – and only the last third of the last stanza tips completely into banality – both the technologically deterministic cliché and the unincisive framing of fascism (the phrase “resentment and fear” lands with a thud.) Even before then, though, the ambling thing Hass does is bothersome when an attentive reader will find his conclusions before he does – as with his reading of Ashbery (counterproductively hedged with a “may be”), or Hitler’s music-listening habits (where surely we don’t need a theoretical example to get the point.) The evil/good stuff, complete with demons, I’m not even going to touch. Nietzsche said it best.