Fifteen Dogs

Prince had gone beyond the canine. No true dog could have uttered such tripe. Prince was not worthy of being one of them.

status – given through admiration for Prince’s ability to speak and perform – that was so new it was difficult to think how one might combat it.

each of the poems in Fifteen Dogs contains one of the dogs’ names.

That yearning was, no doubt,

Frick, Frack and the mutt, Max. They, too, were troubled by self-consciousness, but they learned to suppress thinking.

What they were was inconsiderate, crooked and above all selfish. In a word, they were very like Benjy himself.

what am I without those who understand me?

Are you trying to reason with me? asked Hermes. – There’s no need to be insulting,

new language