Nicholson Baker writes a novel about a poet compiling an anthology

It won't be published for another week or so, but may I enthusiastically recommend Nicholson Baker's The Anthologist, a new novel about a poet who has writer's block composing the introduction to a poetry anthology.

There are marvelous Bakerite meditations on W.H. Auden, the state of poetry reviewing, and the flaw of iambic pentameter in English. I think it may be his best novel since The Mezzanine, which is really saying something.

Order yours, as they say, today.

--Ken Tucker

Comments

[DL]

Thank you for the tip, Ken. Never before have I heard of a novel with a poetry anthologist as a protagonist. And one with writer's block no less. Luckily it is not an affliction I suffer from: BAP 2009 is about to come out -- with, I reckon, the 23rd foreword I've written since the series began. Can't wait to read Baker's new book.