ON YOUR BACKCOVER / PETRA WHITE
So Long Bulletin has been perusing the various blurbs on the back covers of poetry books lately, and sees a niche in the market for the services of our own blurb writers, our eminent poets-in-residence, Mr Old-High-Kudos and Ms Young-Powerful. Our prestigious fully-emerged and most name-droppable poets will write up to 100 ecstatic words per cover of absolutely any book regardless of quality, and for their fee, require that a minimum of three poems in the book be dedicated to them, at least one of which should be an epistolary address expressing oedipal admiration and struggle. (Examples of such poetry will be posted here in the near future.) Here are some of their latest, fully-customisable blurb models:
‘The poetry of X ushers me into the penumbra of sublime summers every time I read it, which is often. She takes the ringing bell of love and tips it firmly on its side. Hers is a voice I taste in the rain and hear in the stars. With every poem she pulls back the drawbridge of assumption and shoves the reader into unknown territory. This is transcendent poetry, best enjoyed with a 2006 Cab Merlot Grenache on a dusky porch with the dog.’
‘This is a poetry of watchfulness and bold suspicion. Nobody can read this book and retain false notions of comfort and bourgeois ease. To quote the concluding lines of his penultimate satire: “shut up, all of you”.’
‘Muscular wit in a devillish slant lurks behind the quiet facade of these poems. This is a poet of hard-won grit, and a sandy expanse of vision to match. Each lyric begins as quietly as a whirring swallow, before broadening out into the powerful hoot of an owl, then swooping like an eagle onto the crest of what turns out to be a modern-day psalm. Read this book.’
Interested poets and publishers may submit manuscripts to Their Eminences, 1007 Amazing Street, Bliss, 1955.
