From gestation to realization, Jerry Williams spent more than four years compiling the poems that make up this text: gaining rights, organizing them, writing his own introduction, dealing with the death of a writer who was originally meant to be in the anthology, etc. He was able to get Bob Hicok to write three original poems expressly for this anthology; does that sound like something one would do if they weren’t completely committed to producing the best work possible? In the midst of this mammoth undertaking, he was also able to write and publish his second book of poetry, teach a rigorous courseload at MMC (8 classes per academic year), get married, apply for and receive tenure and promotion, mentor countless young writers, and produce wide scholarship. Your hypothesis that this book may just be a way of padding a tenure application proves not only how little you know, but the general tenor of the review you are trying to write here. As one who knows Jerry personally, the simplest thing I can say is that you are dead wrong; this was a labor of love if ever there was one. And as someone who has long been a critic writing for many Internet publications, your snarky, solipsistic review embarrasses me.

Dearest Someone who knows more than me,

I am always happy to be reminded you exist. And no, this certainly does not sound like the activity of an individual who has simply created a document as padding for his tenure application. However, as you must realize, as people asked to review and examine pieces of work, it is incumbent upon us (yes, you and I, and others, too) to accept and explore the work qua work. Allow me, if you will, to explicate.

In order to illustrate my discussion, I would like to turn briefly to the realm of visual art, so let us go walking, hand in hand (if you’ll still have mine) in a museum of your choice. Let us stop before whichever painting might catch our fancy–say Picasso, or Cezanne—to admire the mastery of the strokes, of the proportions and tones. And yet, there is more to be considered. There exists in the realm of painting, of photography and drawing as well, the illustrious and—dare I say it–extremely important decision of whether or not to frame the piece when it is exhibited. Many artists, such as Rothko and Pollock, decide often to exclude a frame from their paintings, allowing the consistent tone of the wall itself to act as border, setting the work before the flat blankness, while allowing that surrounding surface to uninterruptedly communicate (except by spatial difference) with that which it supports, that which breaks it. If the decision is to include a frame, we cannot ignore the fact that the frame itself becomes a part of that which it frames, informing and communicating with it, simply by confining or extending its borders. This is why many artists choose to construct their own.

Writers, lamentably (unless they would like to disperse their work as loose pages without cover or introduction) lack the luxury of the first of these decisions, and this fact may have led to a certain amount of ignorance (and I use this word intentionally) concerning the fact of the frame when it comes to a book. Thus: “You can’t judge a book by its cover.” This is, however, an utter fallacy. The cover is that frame. When the book is closed, the cover of the book is what separates or sets apart the text from the surface of the coffee table, from the others in the bookcase, from your hands. It is that which you crack to reveal what lies within, a natural and very physical disjunction: book/not book. As with the frame of a painting, which says “Outside of this is wall, which is different than that which lies within this, which is painting.”

But the concept of frame extends even beyond that, to the conversation that surrounds a work–all that swirling discourse we catch here and there in art-books or criticism or reviews or publisher’s write-ups or dust-jacket inserts. Even now, we–you and I again–are in the process of further framing, as well as revealing, that which is “It’s Not You, It’s Me.” If we are meant to believe Derrida, all of this prattle, all blogging and bickering, all critical examination, exist already within the text or work discussed, and so are inherently OF the work.

Now, I apologize for the long-windedness of this remark, but I am attempting to get at the issues of this piece, a task I may have eschewed earlier out of laziness, and which resulted, I believe, in the snarky tone of my review.

(You will notice, by the way, that as far as the actual stuff, the bulk and body of the work, I have little disparaging to say. It is, I believe, a strong—though limited in its scope because of its concept—survey of contemporary poetics. The sections are aptly formulated. Many of the poems are quite powerful. The paper stock feels pleasant against my fingers. No cuts.)

This all being said, you have, in your comment, shrewdly added another dimension to our understanding of this document. That being: the personhood and character of its editor, Jerry Williams. As it is, I generally prefer to disregard the identity of the author in first examination of the work, as it seems to me the pieces themselves should do the speaking. I do not want to discuss whether the artist is a good person, whether they are sweet and they are kind, whether they are married. However, Jerry Williams is not the artist here, but the instrument by which the pieces were compiled, and thus he too must come into question when examining this work. As with any “Selected Poems,” “It’s Not You, It’s Me” is a subjective assemblage of writings by an individual or individuals, and it seems to me that in the case of a compilation, such as this poetry playlist for the broken-hearted, the intent of those compiling should be in the realm of questionable aspects. As should the cover, with its candy heart reading “GOOD BYE”

Allow me to provide the first lines of the dust-jacket write-up, which—apart from his introduction describing various of his painful breakups—are all we as readers receive of Mr. Williams: “Award-winning poet and legendary sufferer Jerry Williams is a self-proclaimed expert in breaking up.” Nowhere in the introduction are we made to understand the nuances of compiling this book. It goes unmentioned that he was able to get Bob Hicok to contribute three new poems. He fails to note the death of an intended contributing author or the sadness associated with that-which, considering his bit about the project’s rules, seems pertinent. The introduction tries to do much, taking us briefly through four breakups and an ill-fated road-trip, to arrive eventually at some pale sense of anecdotal significance and the volume’s ground-rules.

In the response to the initial review, you write: “As one who knows Jerry personally, the simplest thing I can say is that you are dead wrong; this was a labor of love if ever there was one.” This I believe, as no one would work on something for four years if there were not love involved. However, being that I don’t know Mr. Williams, or how much control he had over the final realization of this project, it is left in my charge simply to document my impressions. Between gestation and realization, between idea and product, the concept, the work within it, and the character of Jerry Williams (who I am sure in actuality is a wonderful man) were cheapened by kitsch and gimmick. Ultimately, the book winds up being cute.