For as long as I can remember, the local supermarket has had copies of
modernist poetry, including the Cantos, for sale right next to the tabloid
newspapers and eyeglass repair kits at the checkout counter.  I've always
assumed this stuff was mainstream. YMMV.
Tim Romano
Erewhon, PA



At 10:27 PM 7/31/01 -0700, Tim Bray wrote:
>At 02:22 PM 31/07/01 -0500, Carrol Cox wrote:
> >... when I was first reading the Cantos practically alone
> >back in the late '50s.
>
>Which raises a question in the mind of this non-scholar, the
>answer to which may be at the mental fingertips of the titans
>of erudition on-list: how popular is this stuff anyhow?
>Did ND ever say how many copies of various Canto collections
>they've shipped over the years?  I guess not counting the
>ones that are compulsory undergrad fare. [Er, I did math,
>I'm assuming that English undergrads are exposed to Cantos?]
>
>Put another way: just exactly how hermetic and weird are we
>all, anyhow? -Tim