Customer Reviews

A Test of Poetry (The Wesleyan Centennial Edition of the Complete Critical Writings of Louis Zukofsky)

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Poor poetry. Either it smothers under tons of academic pretension, or it is retailed as pop entertainment in poetry slams. It seems sometimes that Robert Pinsky is the only one with a good handle on the popular appeal of this emotional/intellectual art. But I bet you Pinsky has this book and refers to it regularly. This is the most hard-headed, economical poetry criticism, completely free of cant and pretension; equally free of stylishness. Zukovsky gives us, as Donald Barthelme once wrote, "the red meat on the rug." The form of the book is disarmingly simple: Selected quotes, side by side, with the occasional footnote. Zukovsky lets you figure things out yourself, and when you refer to his notes, you are nearly always rewarded with the notion that you and he are at least on the same planet when it comes to deciding what is good and what is not so good about poetry. Some of the selections in Middle English or Scots dialect are tough going, but you soon discover that it is as much sound as meaning that is important. In any event, there are plentiful and helpful footnotes. If you're lucky, you've never read any poetry criticism and can leap into this book unbiased and unafraid. If (like your reviewer) you had to read a lot of it in college, you'll feel positively liberated.

I agree completely with the previous reviewer. If I'd known about this book during the years I spent teaching poetry to college freshmen, I'd have adopted some of Zukofsky's gut-level approach. Throw away your preconceptions indeed! Zukofsky encourages you - no, forces you - to decide for yourself what's great, what's good, and what's not so hot. And why. It is beneficially disorienting to see poems whose titles, authors, and dates are identified only in the index: there's no subtle pressure to like or dislike. Except for Z's limited, lucid commentary, you're on your own!

Zukofsky's "test" is not whether poems live up to some arbitrary set of standards of excellence; it's whether they speak to the reader and how the reader subjectively explains how they do it.

The poems are well selected. Most are unfamiliar, and a few are tough going. Every time I look into this book I find something challenging and new.