Customer Reviews

Threshold (Phoenix Poets)

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James Longenbach is not a poet-critic as one may assume due to his highly praised volumes of critical work, most recently, "Modern Poetry After Modernism." This is The Poet who, in his very first books shows the work of a sublime magnificance and a miracle of truth, feeling, thought and understaning embodied in language. This is a poet who knows the language and is able to flow within the form, changing it. His work does not attempt to make a 'splash' or a 'revolution,' it attempts to extend the possibilities of human speech. In this brilliant first book, Longenbach is our supreme heir to Elizabeth Bishop. A great achievement!

Longenbach's work as an analyst of poetics certainly makes his work as an analytic poet seem rough even for his first work. Stone Cottage remains his best work...This was painful at times as compared to his non-fiction analysis work of the past. This author has done admirable work analyzing the work of others...read stone cottage for an example.

The student becomes the professor....or is it the other way around? Anyhow I didnt like this book and I didnt care for the arrogance of he who penned it......