Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0000627, Mon, 26 Jun 1995 10:22:28 -0700

Subject
Poet Tom Bolt & Pale Fire
Date
Body
EDITORIAL NOTE: Brian Boyd has calls attention to the following item.
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In the NY magazine BOMB, Fall 1993, #25, there is a 1001-line poem by
Thomas Bolt, winner of the American Academy of Arts and Letters's Rome
Prize Fellowship in Literature, entitled "Dark Ice," which compulsively
echoes "Pale Fire" (offering, for instance, these combinations: fail,
pyre; fair peel: Feels ripe, real Piaf; fear's pliers; rifle ape; reap
life;...peal free), anagrammatic echoes of Nabokov's name; and his works
in general. For the Nabokovian, it undoubtedly has many witty moments,
but it's also so distracting reading the echoes that it's difficult
to say how the poem works for the non-initiate. A note points out that
Bolt's first book, OUT OF THE WOODS, was published by Yale, and that
"Dark Ice," in its final form, will include notes and parodies of notes, as
well as this poem of 1001 lines.