Widening Income Inequality: Poems Paperback – February 21, 2017

Fred Seidel is eighty. His new work confirms his status as America's wittiest and most unconventional poet. This Ducati riding son of St. Louis burst again on to the scene late in life with the publication of his collected works in 2009. He is a man for all ages and I end each evening reading one of his witty works.

Seidel isn't an "easy" poet. That's not his thing. But the complexity of his language, and the fleet skitter of his thoughts, is genuinely poetic - unlike others I could name.

Very interesting.

America's greatest living poet.

Mr. Seidel at his best!

Frederick Seidel’s latest collection is its usual blistering, shocking and bizarre selection of poems, many of them dealing with contemporary US and world affairs. Many of these poems have already appeared in journals such as The Paris Review or the New York Review of Books, but there are many new verses here. You either love or passionately dislike Seidel – it is difficult to see how one can be agnostic towards his striking and aggressively challenging poetry. Personally, I love his work, even though it can be breathtaking how he blunders and tramples over conventional sensitivities.For example, take a quote from one of the best poems here: Model Train in which Seidel transmogrifies a model train going round a department store Christmas tree into a train taking Jewish families to be gassed in Europe:In God’s department store at Christmastime are many choo-choos.Chuff-chuffing to their death are many Jew-Jews.And then there are the Hutus,And Tutsi vastly murdering them, producing Hutu boo-hoos.Phew.