Friday 3 April 2009

Busting the Blurb Bubble

Was poking around Scribd, and found this takedown of poetry blurbs. Speaking as someone who has both written them and solicited them, some of these satirical examples are funny in that hitting-too-close-to-home kind of way.

My favorites:

"If you read between the lines of what I'm saying, you'll realize my hyperbolic praise is obviously merely that, and the cognoscenti will know by my clever use of the word "accessible" that I deem this book literary roadkill, and quite flyblown at that..."

"This book should come with aspirin (for obvious reasons), a chisel (to scrape out some meanings between the lines), a coffin (for the death of literature) and a slingshot (to take out the windows of the chain bookstore where it came from).

"This book is so sure of its own greatness that I propped it up in front of a mirror, so that it might continue to bask in its own glory for centuries. The beauty of this act is that it spared me the indignity of reading it..."

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