Author Thinks Much Modern Poetry is Dreck

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You may know Camille Paglia from her wide-ranging columns on culture and politics on Salon. Or from her breakthrough book: "Sexual Personae, a treatise on decadence in the history of art." It's fair to say her thoughts are often provocative, causing controversy with feminists and cultural conservatives alike. In her most recent book, she goes back to basics, and turns to her academic roots: poetry. And she rails against what she terms "post -modernist" theories of poetry. The title -- "Break, Blow, Burn" -- comes from a line of one of John Donne's Holy Sonnets. It's a collection of essays on 43 poems Paglia teaches in class: from lyrics to a song by Joni Mitchell, to classics like Shakespeare and Donne.

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