November 13, 2005

Recent negative reviews in Poetry

As much as I hate how mainstream the mainstream is betwixt the pages of Poetry, I do in fact read Poetry month after month, mainly for the reviews. So when Judith Kitchen (among many others expressing similar thoughts) writes, "I've noticed a tendency toward (no, a fad for) negative reviews;" I agree with Mark Steudel and say the dialogue between critic and reader, critic and writer is not only welcomed but necessary (Poetry Sept. 2005, 462; Poetry November 2005, 162). Poetry is one of the few institutions that can pull a bad review off without threatening its subscription base. To say that a bad review hurts poetry in any fashion, is to somehow not recognize the value of criticism or the skepticism that many readers of poetry have towards reviews because most are (by necessity?) written by friends or extended acquaintances. In fact, I think that the dearth of bad -- or even mediocre -- reviews hurts poetry. The non-scene-initiated reader, armed with only the blurbs on the back of dust jackets and covers is at a loss; if he doesn't already know, he doesn't know. If you doubt the veracity of this statement just reread Richard Kostelanetz' piece "Poetry Blurbs" in Central Park #24 (1995), a testament to how empty another poet's accolades can be. Is there any wonder that the mainstream would-like-to-learn-about-poetry reader is buying Garrison Keilor's, Good Poems (Viking, 2002) or its franchise?