Pulitzer winning poet of 1947 1974 / FRI 11-17-17 / Wrong Way Corrigan's wrong way / Wheels for rent in Big Apple / Model with Global Chic fashion line / Drum go-with

Constructor: Zhouqin Burnikel

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: Robert LOWELL (46D: Pulitzer-winning poet of 1947 and 1974) —

Robert Traill Spence Lowell IV (/ˈloʊəl/; March 1, 1917 – September 12, 1977) was an American poet. He was born into a Boston Brahmin family that could trace its origins back to the Mayflower. His family, past and present, were important subjects in his poetry. Growing up in Boston also informed his poems, which were frequently set in Boston and the New England region. The literary scholar Paula Hayes believes that Lowell mythologized New England, particularly in his early work. [...] He was appointed the sixth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, where he served from 1947 until 1948. In addition to winning the National Book Award, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1947 and 1974, the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1977, and a National Institute of Arts and Letters Award in 1947. He is "widely considered one of the most important American poets of the postwar era." His biographer Paul Mariani called him "the poet-historian of our time" and "the last of [America's] influential public poets."

Not a sufficiently scintillating Friday. Longer answers weren't spiffy enough, and the short fill got pretty wonky in places. Not bad, just not good enough. I like "I" phrases just fine but I weirdly got tired by the third one (I FORGOT, I CAN WAIT, I NEED A RIDE). I, MAN—it grates on you after a while. FRET AT feels super-awkward. Don't you fret *over* something? Well, at least it's not as awkward as TESLA CARS (!?!?!?). Is that to distinguish them from TESLA DETERGENT or TESLA HAND PUPPETS. Teslas are cars. TESLA CARS ... are redundant. I found this whole puzzle very hard to move through, in general, and yet I ended up with a time in the mid-5s, which is actually (I think) slightly below normal. I lucked out, though, in that I knew Robert LOWELL and Chase UTLEY. Good luck to those who didn't, yikes.


CITIBIKES is a nice, fresh answer at 1A: Wheels for rent in the Big Apple, but nothing after that was nearly as appealing. I don't quite get the clue on CADS (1D: Bad catches?). Are you dating the CADS? I don't think of CADS as having anything (necessarily) to do with "catches"? Now that I look at it, I'm not even sure I understand how "catches" is being used here, or what the phrase "bad catches" is even punning on. When would you use the phrase "bad catch," in any context? I think "catches" here means, like, "dates" or "boyfriends" or something (as in "he's a good catch"), but ... CADS mostly describe guys you're *not* dating ... right? My biggest problems today were, first, in the SW, where hard clues onSCAN (52D: Emailable picture) and CANES (?) (59A: They may go on long walks) and NEWLY (65 ___ revised) (?!!) made the corner hard despite the sweet SMEW gimme (52A: Duck variety). And then I couldn't come up with ANALGESI*A* (61A: One effect of marijuana). Wanted ANALGESI*C*. That corner was particularly rough where short fill was concerned: ANNO, GRO, ISAO. I also wanted OH OH OH instead of OOH OOH, which is one hell of a silly trap to fall into (11D: Eager student's cry). I'm just glad I can move on now. Fridays are my favorite days, so it's always disappointing when they fall short.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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