Grumpy Old Men

Rumor has it that Ted Kooser and Billy Collins are a couple of grumpy old men when it comes to each other.  I don't have any documents of Billy's that I can turn to at the moment, but in the current Rattle, Alan Fox gets this out of Ted:

Ted:  "I want the writing to be completely transparent...I want my reader to just simply go right through the screen of the words into the experience."

Alan:  "That's good.  I assume then you would agree with the adage that 'brevity is the soul of wit'?"

Ted:  "I think I would.  I'm a little averse to wit and witness and cleverness.  Those are things that I don't think always serve us too well in poems.  There are some of my contemporaries who, once you scrape all the cleverness off their work, there's really nothing underneath."

Ouch!  I especially like the preposition "off" their work.  But think about Misters Kooser and Collins, how similar they are:  Neither one is writing for the elitist magazines, neither one is trying to win one of the genius contests.  They are both writing for the same audience, the higher educated, general audience.  And they both have a pretty light touch.  Both seem pretty upbeat.  Both are completely accessible by anybody out of the fourth grade.  Neither one is dumping his crap on us like some poets I could name, neither one is writing about politics or public definitions.  Neither one of them is talking down to us; they are both regular guys.  These are personal, lyric poets who would both be splendid guests at a barbecue.

Just separate barbecues, I guess.  Like Felix and Oscar, the Odd Couple.  Yes, and I know which one's Felix, too.  Do you?  Of course you do.  Thanks for reading.