Written Reaction: Poetics Politics Polemics (1979-1995)

A stimulating collection of broadsides from one of our most intelligent critics, a writer who, amazingly in our mamby-pamby age, does not pull his punches. The "Notes from Sulfur," short-takes on a variety of subjects, are among the most stimulating pieces here, but how can one not love (particularly given the target) a review which begins: "Robert Bly is a windbag, a sentimentalist, a slob in language. Yet he is one of the half-dozen poets who are widely read; and of them, the one whose work is most frequently imitated by fledgling poets and students of 'creative writing.' His success, however, is less disheartening when considered as an emblem of an age--perhaps the first in human history--where poetry is a useless pleasantry, largely ignored by the reading public."