katepowellshine's review against another edition
4.0
For years, I stood firmly opposed to poetry about the writing of poetry, the poetry scene, or poets, because it seemed like a trend that perpetuates the insularity of a medium already dangerously far outside the realm of relevance for most people. I thought the publishing industry should reward poets who reach outside poetry's usual readership. Since then, I've come to realize the extent to which people don't read AT ALL, and am happy to see poetry has any kind of audience. I've even developed quite a fondness for poetry about poetry... all of which is entirely too long an introduction to the statement that I liked this book. It also does contain some poems about poetry... in addition to many others.
jemmania's review against another edition
adventurous
inspiring
fast-paced
4.0
McGrath's poems deploy a masterful manipulation of beautiful and often obscure words to craft abstract & meaningful similes & metaphors. Travel on McGrath's back through the world, the poetry scene, and his mind.
A favorite quote:
Poetry is a capricious vessel, with no limits to its plasticity, no end to the thoughts and feelings it can accommodate, no restrictions upon the imaginings it can bend through language into being.
A favorite quote:
Poetry is a capricious vessel, with no limits to its plasticity, no end to the thoughts and feelings it can accommodate, no restrictions upon the imaginings it can bend through language into being.
mezekial's review against another edition
3.0
Humorous, celebratory and packed with some of the most clever poetic wits I've ever seen. McGrath speaks along hallways in this collection, with his especially deft jabs and allusions to the poetic cannon but without any reservations on breaking the 4th wall to admit that the poem you are reading was written on the back of a coaster at 2am. A lot of times the specific angle flies right over my head--namely in a confusing, if not humorous account of tiger hunting with Robert Lowell--but I never felt like a lack of knowledge with cannon or historical poetic forms got in the way from enjoying (immensely, immensely) this collection.
cwwh's review
3.0
I liked a handful of the poems I read from this book but often found the rest to be needlessly wordy. Not that that's always a bad thing but it kind of felt like he was just whipping SAT words into his lines for the sake of it. McGrath has some poignant observations on the medium of poetry as well but sometimes it all gets a bit overstated, in my opinion.
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