After reading this piece in Harper’s, Poetry Slam, being an avid reader of contemporary poetry, criticism and reviews of same, my first response was to the by-line: Who’s he, I said to myself, and why am I interested in his critical take on the state of contemporary poetry? I still can’t answer that one. From a quick check of Edmundson’s credentials (on-line) I determined that, other than being an English professor at a major university, he seems to have little or no background in the field of contemporary poetry (which becomes evident by the poets he cites and his severely limited viewpoint). Edmundson is neither a poet actively engaged in the art, nor is he a well-published critic or reviewer of contemporary poetry.
What was Harper’s agenda in publishing this piece of drive-by criticism? To stir things up among contemporary poets? Not the biggest playground to trot out an unknown no-nothing bully onto. I guess someone more qualified, like William Logan, wasn’t available. Because I think of Edmundson as a William Logan wannabe, one who is trying to take a shortcut to the role of naysayer without doing the requisite reviewing, the thrashing and trashing, that Logan has done over the years.
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