Bill Knott on Robert Hass

July 5, 2009

I recently ‘fessed up to a friend that I sometimes enjoy William Logan’s vicious reviews. I don’t necessarily agree with the substance of Logan’s criticism—in fact I agree with most of the well-publicized pans—but I admire his verbal facility, his sharp, intelligent wit, and, yes, his literate snark. I’m not a big fan of negative reviewing for what I consider to be pragmatic reasons, but I can appreciate these aspects of Logan’s hatchety reviews in the way I can appreciate a standup comic even if I have no sympathy for the ideas he is joking about.

Bill Knott recently (re)posted a blast at Robert Hass that closely resembles the ideal of the comi-tragic critical form in my head. Knott’s diatribe made me laugh out loud, which I appreciate. It’s a creative work in and of itself, which so few examples of this kind of writing are… it’s pretty obvious that when he wrote this he was on some kind of crazy “roll.” And Knott doesn’t pretend he’s writing from some generic, generally representative, objective place but straight out of his own personal (and personally affronted) perspective. Plus, Bill’s a far better poet than William Logan.

I can’t say that I agree wholly with Bill’s take on Hass, but it’s a take that is something to behold. Hass’ poetry has never really stood out—it’s difficult for me to recall anything of his I’ve read—despite reading at least three of his books. But he is the author of one of my favorite traditional prose poems, which I (almost guiltily) include here:

"A Story About the Body"

The young composer, working that summer at an artist’s colony, had watched her for a week. She was Japanese, a painter, almost sixty, and he thought he was in love with her. He loved her work, and her work was like the way she moved her body, used her hands, looked at him directly when she mused and considered answers to his questions. One night, walking back from a concert, they came to her door and she turned to him and said, “I think you would like to have me. I would like that too, but I must tell you that I have had a double mastectomy,” and when he didn’t understand, “I’ve lost both my breasts.” The radiance that he had carried around in his belly and chest cavity-like music-withered quickly, and he made himself look at her when he said, “I’m sorry I don’t think I could.” He walked back to his own cabin through the pines, and in the morning he found a small blue bowl on the porch outside his door. It looked to be full of rose petals, but he found when he picked it up that the rose petals were on top; the rest of the bowl-she must have swept the corners of her studio-was full of dead bees.

–Robert Hass

Tags: bill knott, criticism, poetry, poets, reviews, robert hass