In this week’s episode, Rachael Tillman and I break some standards of academia as we discuss the poetry insights of Paul Chowder, the narrator of Nicholson Baker’s 2009 comic novel, The Anthologist.

Since this is novel is a novel and not, strictly speaking a craft book or a scholarly treatise, we shouldn’t be treating this novel like either of those. In fact, the novel is sort of the consciousness of a mid-level poet who experiences sometimes extreme anxiety about making the sort of poetic declarations that the introduction of his anthology seems to require. But the ideas are so good and presented so unpreciously that we couldn’t help ourselves. Plus the novel is charming and funny, so there’s that.

Thanks to Nicholson Baker for granting us a self-effacing invocation for this rambling, joyous conversation about a book I cannot recommend highly enough.

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Episode 632 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature, is available on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).