I just received a review copy of the New Directions reissue of poet Kenneth Patchen’s The Walking-Away World. I’m not sure why, since at first glance it seemed unlikely that I would have anything to say about the volume that would help publicize it. The illustrated poetry inside is a far cry from science fiction or fantasy, and so I’m not sure what the PR department was thinking, since there’s no hook that would cause me to review the book in either Science Fiction Weekly or SCI FI magazine.

Then I read the introduction, since I enjoy reading writing about writing, regardless of the genre. It turned out to have been written by Jim Woodring, the cartoonist of the surreal wordless series Frank. I can only assume that he was chosen because of the parallels between his work and the three picture-poems of Patchen’s which are gathered here.

So the reason I’m sharing about The Walking-Away World is due to an anecdote Woodring shares in his introduction, one which relates to the recent brouhaha concerning the proper way to respond to bad reviews. Since I have no one-star Amazon reviews of my work and therefore can’t respond to this fiasco the way John Scalzi did, I figure this is the least I can do. (more…)