New Wrinkles

Roger A. Lewin

Better than Lewin's Lamentations, if only because it's half as long. Less swine to root through for the elusive pearls. But my god, what swine.

“Poetry has the wind
for a coat of arms, the wind
for a coat of harms, the wind
for a coat of charms.”
(“Poetry Has the Wind”)

In some twisted way, I can see this book becoming a cult classic, elevating Lewin to the same status as the triumvirate of Horrible American Poets—Rod McKuen, Susan Polis Schutz, and Helen Steiner Rice. Lord knows there's stuff in here that puts him at the heights, or lows, of what those three have been able to accomplish. New Wrinkles, as with all of Lewin's work, is best taken with large doses of alcohol.