the night before the nobel prize for literature was announced i read an article giving odds by the british betting firm ladbrokes to potential winners the author didn't even consider bob dylan in contention so when i woke on thursday morning and anna told me bob dylan was awarded the nobel prize for literature i was both delighted and puzzled because partly i think awards are a cod's game most of the artists filmmakers  poets etc etc i love do not get much recognition from the public at large much less awards by committees who cares about awards anyway i mean i double-dog dare you to go thru the list of say pulitzer and/or nobel winners and see if you recognize half the names but bob dylan is a different breed of writer a popular troubadour whose lyrics have been studied and memorized by millions of people so i say of course yes dylan is a poet and the nobel committee pitched itself to relevance of popular culture because the person i wanted to see win the nobel is jaan kaplinksi and who in popular culture knows his name but for a dedicated few so we have bob dylan awarded the highest literary prize on the planet and perhaps his celebrants who declaim the brilliance of his poetry will pick up a book or two of poetry and read them and maybe now that the nobel committee has broadened and deepened their criteria of literature maybe we'll see fellow troubadours patti smith tom verlaine richard hell elvis costello on the shortlist of potential winners but you see my bias there for punk and post-punk okay let's broaden our horizons and include filmmakers because i've long advocated movies are literature and say francis ford coppola david lynch werner herzog among a many worthy others as potentials on the nobel shortlist i'm not shitting you as for pop lyrics as poetry i've long thought poetry is a wide universe and now with bob dylan's win we have the proof