The Seasons Start Inside You

All spring his confession dogged me. The review copy arrived in March; it sat on my bedside table unread. PAN it said, in big yellow letters, against an ugly, confused backdrop that reminded me, when I happened to glance at it, of a painting one might find in a dentist’s office. But it was his confession that bothered me, written in the same yellow as the title, neatly occupying the bottom couple inches of cover space: “I steal language and ideas from Michael Clune.” It came courtesy of Ben Lerner, a peer of Clune’s, a poet-novelist himself, and – apparently – a thief.