Self-examination …

… X. J. Kennedy: About "B Negative". (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

So what if, as John Simon thought, the poem echoed another? Poems are frequently allusive. I would never have drawn the connection myself, and wouldn't have much cared if I had. As for Jarrell's objection to Fitzgerald's Rubaiyat, to each his own. I love it and always have. Not sure why Kennedy was "wrestling to escape from Catholicism," whatever that means. Easy enough to stop the practice of it. Harder — and maybe not so wise — to elude the facticity of it.