criticsm – AGAINST INTERPRETATION

by Steven M. Critelli March 15, 2016 1

A.R. Ammons – “Cascadilla Falls”

The poem exerts a magnetic attraction, largely due to its lyric intensity and the unpredictable development of its content: from a pastoral setting on Cornell’s campus in Upstate New York (where the “single creek” featured in the poem cuts through the Cascadilla gorge), to the capaciousness of its scientific quantifications of the cosmos and the apparent awe inspired by the poet’s realization of his place in the universal scheme, and finally to the surprising lament at the end of the poem.

by Steven M. Critelli January 29, 2013 0

Literary Criticism

Reading Kate Potts – Pure Hustle

You can tell that Potts has a very high poetry I.Q., as this volume demonstrates her ability to engage in descriptive and affecting portraiture, which I think is her greatest gift.

by Steven M. Critelli November 29, 2012 2

Literary Criticism

Reading Michael Robbins – Alien vs. Predator

While he writes as a new age poète maudit, following the example of François Villon, Tristan Corbière, and Claude Baudelaire, one can hardly recall a more confrontational voice that challenges the sanctity of everything, especially poetry, which Robbins cannibalizes with evil delight. The fading glory of the natural world and the Keatsian ideal, “truth is beauty, beauty truth,” hold nothing for him, except as sullied palimpsest upon which to write his inspired graffiti. In the Bizarro world of the irrational, profligate and amoral that Robbins apprehends, “The truth makes me hurl; the truth is a mistake.”