Wednesday, February 08, 2006

I guess his name was probably Robert

In last week's Advocate, I thought it was cool when, in his interview with Kurt Vonnegut, Alan Bisbort illustrated a point by issuing the following quote: "There's no money in poetry and vice versa", and crediting it to Robyn Hitchcock.
Vonnegut liked the quote and said he'd never heard it before.

But perhaps he has heard of the REAL source of the quote: Robert Graves.
(thanks to an astute friend for pointing that out.)
Admittedly, Robyn made the quote his own, and admittedly, I'm much more familiar w/ Hitchcok's work than Robert "I Claudius" Graves.
The real quote is:
"There's no money in poetry, but then there's no poetry in money, either."

So, I wonder how many letters to the editor this got?

1 comment:

Rick said...

If the drumming thing doesn't work out, you can always be a madcap literary essayist. Ladies and gentlemen: Brian "I Cerebral" Marchese. Hmmm. Could work. You'd have to wear more tweed, though.