I was looking up Weinberger and came across his response to a review by John Yau of his (Weinberger's) anthology of poetry in 1994. The anthology itself seems absurd, with a negligible number of women, for example, and the inclusion of the awful Rexroth Mariko poems. Yau critique is also absurd, wanting Weinberger to have included oddly specific things, like Gertrude Stein, who wrote nothing after 1950 (Weinberger's cut off date.) Weinberger's response is also over the top, calling Yau a "scumbag" and pointing out that Yau as art critic is mostly concerned with white painters, etc...
It seems to be a case of a gunfight between blind men. Each is blinded by his own biases, despite the fact that they are virtually in the same club. For example, Yau criticizes the inclusions of too many writers associated with Sulfur, and EW points out that Yau himself was associate editor of this journal for 8 years. Weinberger attended Yau's wedding, etc...
A few others pipe up to defend Weinberger, and Yau answers their critiques also.
The victims of this gun fight of the blind are everyone else, everyone who wants a more reasonable perspective. Yet the revisiting of these polemics is salutary and amusing.
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