“Not one syllable of what Hemingway has written can or will be missed by any literate person in the world.”
NYT Book Review c. 1950
What are critics made of -- all the ones that read a book;
the ones who are myopic and can only cock a snook.
Are they made of scholarship and generosity;
can they be broadminded or show much humanity?
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Alas, reviewers who read books and pass their judgments grim
are mousy little people who won't go out on a limb.
Dyspeptic and so ulcerous of other writer's work
they bury talent six feet deep with insult and a smirk.
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They practice on the public, and their folly so display
that they become a laughing stock one not so distant day.
What are critics made of? Like the hot dog, do not look;
they ought to be boiled in black ink for slamming my last book!
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