Just Let Me Say This about That: A Narrative Poem (Sewanee Writers') [Hardcover]

John Bricuth (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 1998 | Series: Sewanee Writers'

"As strong and moving, funny and high-energetic and horrifically splendid a long poem as our language has been lately blessed with" (John Barth), "Just Let Me Say This About That" "propounds an important vision of who and where we all are now" (John Hollander).

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

After a heyday in the 18th century, a spectacular series of Romantic and Victorian contortions and a brief revival in the hands of W.H. Auden, the philosophical essay-in-verse has died in our century and left only its ghost to haunt the lyric. In this brilliant long poem, Bricuth (aka Johns Hopkins critic John Irwin) has more fun with the cadaver than is seemly or moral, adapting a late-middle-aged, Midwestern, Jehovah-like persona (named "Sir") who uses the pretext of a press conference with three reporters ("Bird," "Fox" and "Fish") to sound off, in a fine parody of Frost at his cheesiest, on the State of the Universe at century's end. Taking up one after another the received consolations of the age in response to the animals' Big Questions (What is truth? What is the good life? "'Ah, Sir, did you have to kill the children?'" etc.), the crass, sadistic Sir quashes each glimmer of rational hope, to his own delight and their despair. It's "The Mr. Bill Show" in blank verse tercets, "On the Vanity of Human Wishes" updated by Richard Rorty on a bad trip and Browning's Setebos come to life, full of learned references and mock-instructive fables in the Augustan manner. Which is to say, Bricuth's poem is very funny; it's also surprisingly, embarrassingly sad, a convincing account of the pain we pretend is wisdom. (Sept.) FYI: Just Let Me Say This About That is the first volume in Overlook's Sewanee Writers' Series.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

A second collection by the alter ego of John Irwin, the Johns Hopkins humanities professor and author of a few critical studies of American Literature (The Mystery to a Solution, etc.), inaugurates a new series co-published with the Sewanee writers conference and subsidized by the estate of Tennessee Williams. Bricuths book-length narrative poem intends to instruct and delight in true classical fashion, but organizes itself as a press conference, that most timely form of communication. The interrogated Sir, part statesman, part entertainer, part patriarch, and partly divine, tries to answer the existential questions posed by Fish, Bird, and Fox, who seek a code of how to be/ And what to do. The opening shots begin with a barrage of Joycean riffs, a sonorous binge of alliteration and rhyme that ill prepares the reader for Sirs wry bonhomie, his chatty means of evading their urgent queries with slow parable, extended sports metaphors, and frank language, which all draw on a wealth of popular and literary imagery and allusion. Bricuths virtuoso performance never sags, even if it never rises to Olympian heightsthe section suggesting that Every Jobs just another Joe to Sir best articulates his grim truths about the sour rag of the self and his millennial dread. With wit and considerable wisdom throughout this always-engaging poem, Bricuth clings to the occasional surprise by joya tonic for anxious times. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 124 pages
• Publisher: Overlook Hardcover; First Edition edition (August 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0879519029
• ISBN-13: 978-0879519025
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.7 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,852,455 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars If you liked Toole's 'Confederacy of Dunces..., October 23, 2000

By 

steve geertsen (waldport, or USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Just Let Me Say This about That: A Narrative Poem (Sewanee Writers') (Hardcover)

I think this is the finest long poem ever written. This is exactly what Pound, Lewis, Eliot, and the boys were trying to do. It is a crying shame this baby hasn't sold. If you're tired of reading 200 modern poems a get a good line or two, please try this masterpiece. I can't do justice to it with a description..but kinda like The book of Job on speed.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A review on contemporary poety, April 3, 2005

By 

Shannon Ress "shannon" (Long Island NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Just Let Me Say This About That: A Narrative Poem (Paperback)

"Just Let Me Say This About That" is a very good read and is in a format not like others. It deals with many of life's big questions and keeps the reader interested in the next question and response. The answers to these questions seem at times philosophical, but after explained by the speaker, seem to ring true.
In John Bircuth's "Just Let Me Say This About That", he explores what truth is in its core essence and what truth is to different people. The book takes form in a question and answer format and the questioners or reporters are The Bird, The Fish and The Fox. The speaker is either God, The President of the United States, everyone's Father or a combination of all three. Life lessons are explained through situations and circumstances in "the game" of life. Everyday occurrences seem to take on a deeper meaning when examined more closely and I found this narrative poem to be fresh and clever.