Poetry Criticism

We've gotten a few reviews back on a new title of ours, "GLOBETROTTER & HITLER'S CHILDREN," a poetry collection by Amatoritsero Ede on Chris Abani's Black Goat imprint here at Akashic Books.


Poetry reviews tend to be just as obscure, or sometimes murkier than the poetry itself—which is already an esoteric (don't quibble!) activity that often only looks back in on itself. I was pleased to see a review of GLOBETROTTER that examined and clarified the text, rather than saying what was simply good or bad about the work (this is the easiest criticizing to do--I, just as much as anyone, am guilty!).

Here is a link to the review: http://www.eyeweekly.com/arts/books/article/65522

And here is a link to a great article by Matthew Zapruder about contemporary poetry criticism, where some of the ideas I just said are detailed much more clearly!

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/journal/article.html?id=186047