Customer Reviews

How Things Are (Carnegie-Mellon Poetry)

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James Richardson ought to be much, much better-known than he is. His last book, "As If," was one of the most beautiful poetry collections of the Nineties. Let's hope that "How Things Are" gets him the recognition the world owes him. He is among the wittiest poets writing today -- just read his animal poems, especially "For the Squirrels" and "Mothy Ode" -- these are laugh-out-loud funny poems (a rarity in any historical age.) His longer "How Things Are" (Suite for Lucretians) and "Under Water" are both excellent -- if you read the Yale Review or the Quarterly Review of Literature you may be acquainted with earlier versions. And the final section is both majestic and precise, doing for New Jersey what some of Robert Hass's poetic sequences have done for Northern California. Every era has its great unknown poets, and there's no doubt in my mind that James Richardson is one of ours.

Sign me up to the above review. This guy is smart, has a great ear, and writes with an uncanny sense of form. Raise your hands if you can name five other American poets of whom that could honestly be said.