A Poetry Criticism Reader

Book excerpt: A timely and informative collection, A Poetry Criticism Reader brings together eleven essays and reviews that constitute some of the best and most illuminating poetry criticism from the past decade.In his introduction to the book, editor-poet Jerry Harp gives an overview of poetry criticism and its pluralistic traditions after the high modernist years of T. S. Eliot. In the essays that follow, esteemed critics and poets explore varied aspects of poetics, make aesthetic statements, relate to postmodernism with its array of meanings, and examine particular poets and poems. Works by Donald Justice, James Tate, Paul Muldoon, Jorie Graham, Seamus Heaney, and Czeslaw Milosz are among those studied. None of the pieces was written in direct response to any of the others; nonetheless, they complement each other, forming a kind of dialogue. Because editors Jerry Harp and Jan Weissmiller selected writers who give us a broad range of perspectives on our postmodern moment as they reach into history for context, the collection offers students---the next generation of poets and critics---and their teachers exemplary models of fine critical writing and thought.