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SOME OF AMERICA’S MOST LOVED POETS
NICK FLYNN
Nick Flynn would probably make this list just for the fact that his
memoir is called Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, which is one of our
favorite names for anything ever — never mind that the book, which
traces Flynn’s relationship with his ex-con father living on the streets of
Boston, is brilliant. Flynn, who worked as a ship’s captain, as an
electrician, and at a homeless center before he began racking up
fellowships and writing awards, writes poems and prose with comedic
brilliance and hardscrabble reality in equal measure.
Frederick Seidel
In 1962, Seidel’s first book, Final Solutions, was selected for a prize
sponsored by the 92Y. However, both the 92Y and the publisher
rejected the manuscript on the grounds that some of the poems
“libeled a noted living person” and had “anti-Semitic and anti-Catholic”
tones (an accusation Seidel refuted). The prize was revoked, but
Seidel’s subsequent works only continued to be controversial and, to
some ears, highly offensive. Critics are still torn about him — he is
notoriously filthy rich, refuses to bend to the establishment, and
doesn’t really watch what he says. The New York Times dubbed him
“Laureate of the Louche” and The New Republic’s Adam Kirsch
wondered if he were “A violent misogynist, or an elegant seducer, or
LE PORTRAIT MAGAZINE
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