Letter from Poetry Magazine
Ange Mlinko responds:
BY Ange Mlinko
Ange Mlinko responds:
I'm surprised that my praise for books as different as David Shapiro's, Rae Armantrout's, and Jay Wright's could be construed as "predictable and programmatic." In fact, the books I praised are as different from one another as the books I criticized were similar. This similarity constitutes the status quo. I don't expect to find genius in the status quo, but a little vitality goes a long way. My interpretation of "American Kestrel" doesn't rely on any notion of the authenticity of the speaker: the redundancy of the self speaking of the same self, page after page, is bound to make an intensely monotonous read, whether ironized or not.
I'm surprised that my praise for books as different as David Shapiro's, Rae Armantrout's, and Jay Wright's could be construed as "predictable and programmatic." In fact, the books I praised are as different from one another as the books I criticized were similar. This similarity constitutes the status quo. I don't expect to find genius in the status quo, but a little vitality goes a long way. My interpretation of "American Kestrel" doesn't rely on any notion of the authenticity of the speaker: the redundancy of the self speaking of the same self, page after page, is bound to make an intensely monotonous read, whether ironized or not.
Ange Mlinko was born in Philadelphia and earned her BA from St. John's College and MFA from Brown University. She is the author of five books of poetry: Distant Mandate (2017); Marvelous Things Overheard (2013), which was selected by both the New Yorker and the Boston Globe as a best book of 2013; Shoulder Season (2010), a finalist for the William Carlos Williams Award; Starred Wire (2005), which ...