[New-Poetry] All the Logan That's Fit to Print

[almaginnes at aol.com]

Back when David Baker used to review for POETRY, I found that if he liked something, I'd usually like it as well. Peter Makuck, former editor of Tar River Poetry and a fine poet, is also a scrupulous reviewer.  
 
-----Original Message-----
From: grahamd at ripon.edu
To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
Sent: Fri, 13 Apr 2007 10:10 AM
Subject: [New-Poetry] All the Logan That's Fit to Print


In my opinion hatchet jobs and puff pieces are pretty much cut from the same bolt of emotional cloth.  They aren't honest, and they aren't about the poetry--- they are about the writer of the hatchet job or puff piece, they are about career, and they are a sign that in many important ways this community is too small for its own good. 

There are so many really good reviewers out there-- Rain Taxi does very well in finding thoughtful reviewers.  I don't know why the Times can't do better.

Suzanne Burns

========================== 


I agree.  Logan's certainly highly intelligent, and if one can wade through the show-off rhetoric; the shock-jock outrageousness, condescension and snideness; the laughably limited range of taste, there are many nuggets of fine criticism.  And it can be refreshing to see him puncture a few overinflated balloons.  But why bother, when in fact there are so many better reviewers and critics out there?


Logan and his admirers appear to feel that any criticism that doesn't go for the jugular is mere puffery.  While there's certainly lots of puffery out there, there is also a wide territory to work in between the poles.  


So who are your favorite critics and reviewers?  


Back when he did more reviewing, Donald Hall was one of the best, I always thought.  He had no qualms about attacking what he saw as ridiculously inflated reputations (e.g. Robert Penn Warren and Robert Lowell), but he was equally fond of ferreting out the underappreciated (e.g. Thomas McGrath) and composing judicious praise.  Neither puffery nor slash-and-burn.



Hall's a better prose stylist, too, for that matter:  Logan's only got one or two arrows in his quiver, both derived utterly from Randall Jarrell.  



========================================
David Graham
grahamd at ripon.edu
Home Page:
http://www.ripon.edu/academics/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
Poetry Library:
http://www.ripon.edu/academics/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
==========================================








= 
_______________________________________________
New-Poetry mailing list
New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
________________________________________________________________________
AOL now offers free email to everyone.  Find out more about what's free from AOL at AOL.com.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/pipermail/new-poetry/attachments/20070413/49cf0743/attachment.html