Poetry Reviews by Twilite

POETRY REVIEWS WESTERN MASS

"The Best American Poetry 2006"
Guest Editor - Billy Collins
Series Editor - David Lehman
Publisher: Scribners, 2006

Safe, predictable sampling of so-called high quality poetry for the masses.
Rounds up all of the usual suspects and a few annoited successors. As even and
flat as a frozen pond. For all of his vaunted wit, Collins choices are
relentlessly limited. No, it's not terrible, just disappointing and lacking in
grit or soul. I like my poetry a little unwashed, and with a very few
exceptions, this tweed wearing collection failed to deliver. Poetry by MFA's
for MFA's. It's exactly what you'd expect. Twilite's rating: 6.5

Editor's Note: Being in an MFA program, I beg to differ on the point that MFA's only like "tweed wearing" poetry. We have hip-hop,slam, beat, cowboy and biker poets in my program, who have more of the "unwashed" style that our esteemed reviewer prefers, and he knows it! - Lori
---------------------------------------------------------

Slate Roof Press, Group Reading, March 7, 2007
Forbes Library

Slate Roof Press is a group from Franklin county that formed a small member press to produce chapbooks. They were all good readers, and the books were all nicely done. Trish Crapo, what a great name for a poet but it's pronounced "cray-poe" (too bad), had a couple of good poems, especially one called "Salt", though I thought she played it a little safe. Susan Middleton has a descriptive style, wonderfully rich and vivid, but I got the feeling I was looking at one of those super-realist paintings that are so popular now. Art Stein had some good poems, and he was heavily into the Japanese formulaic (he was good at it, though) and his stuff had a sensuous feel. My favorite was Jim Bell, who's style was economical and clean and surprisingly effective and evocative. I found his poetry to be the most interesting and unique of the evening. I thought the weakest poet was Susan (Pupello?, I didn't quite catch the name), though in no way was she bad. One of her poems was about her first sexual experience. It was a little detached, like sex with a statue, (though she did use an unflattering and interesting image of her father's equipment, comparing it to the "brown pipes behind the john" and even emphasized it with an editorial comment, "it's true") I didn't even get a twinge. All in all it was not an unpleasant evening, but a little staid and subdued, and the crowd was pretty old, am I getting that old? I talked to some of the poets afterwards but I got the feeling it was a little insular.
Twilite's rating - 7.9