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Boots!

Where would we be without boos?

Where would we be without good?

No, Timberd.

It's a rhetorical question, sir.

But where would we be without books?

From KCRW and KCRW.com, I'm Michael Silverblatt, and this is Bookworm.

Today, we have a very special guest. He's almost been part of the history of Bookworm. In the early days of the show,

Mitch Siskind and I did a couple of shows on April Fool's Day. They were very funny and very

original. Some people were completely fooled by them. Now we have a book by

Mitch. It's called Collected Poems from 2005 to 2020. Once upon a time when I was in college,

the magnificent and brilliant writer Donald Barthelme, was my teacher.

He told me there were two great unknown comic writers.

One was Charles Portis, who had written a book called Norwood and had written True Grit, which later became a movie, and then a movie again.

Charles Portis gradually became well-known.

Mitch Siskind was not yet well-known.

He'd published stories here and there. Donald Bartholmey knew him

because Mitch Siskund studied at Columbia University with the poet Kenneth Koch, and Donald

Barthelmey was helping Kenneth with Kenneth's novel, The Red Robbins,

and Kenneth one day mentioned this extraordinary and hilarious student, Mitch Siskind.

I guess, since so many writers studied with Kenneth Koch at Columbia University, as did my guest, Mitch

...