Things I've found in books

One of the things that somewhere between amuses and annoys me is when you get a book from the library and find that some thoughtful person has written little notes in it. A commentary, their own reaction to some of the wordage contained within.

So yesterday I'm reading Professors, Politics And Pop by Jon Wiener, a collection of essays by the author of Come Together: John Lennon In His Time. Among them, a review of a then-new book by Jonathan Cott about Bob Dylan.

Wiener writes:

In addition to his other absurdities, Cott repeats the moth-eaten cliche that Dylan is "America's greatest poet," which Ellen Willis dispensed with in 1969. "Poetry requires economy, coherence and discrimination," she wrote. Dylan turns out five images where one will do, his phrases are often tangled, his metaphors are silly and he tries to make everything rhyme. He's a great songwriter but a terrible poet.

Now, my own feelings about Dylan are probably well-known to most of you (if not, they involve me not giving a ratfucking piss). But someone who had this book before me was, apparently, a Dylan fan who was simply not having that and so strove to express themselves and correct the record.

They have underlined the last sentence-"He's a great songwriter but a terrible poet"-and added the words

what ever

That's the economy, coherence and discrimination that I choose to see as typical of the Dylan fan's refined taste and ear for poetry.