Our Savage Art: Poetry and the Civil Tongue Hardcover - 2009

From the rear cover

Praise for The Undiscovered Country: Poetry in the Age of Tin

"Our wittiest critic of contemporary verse lets loose one lethal shaft after another."-James Marcus, Newsday

"Logan has firmly established himself as the pit bull of mainstream poetry reviewers."-Maureen N. McLane, Chicago Tribune

Praise for Desperate Measures

"When it comes to separating the serious from the fraudulent, the ambitious from the complacent, Logan has consistently shown us what is wheat and what is chaff.... The criticism we remember is neither savage nor mandarin.... There is no one in his generation more likely to write it than William Logan."-Adam Kirsch, Oxford American

Praise for William Logan

"Who's the Best Poetry Critic in America? His name I can mention. William Logan, who must be tired of being compared to Randall Jarrell, but such is one's fate when one writes as wickedly, knowledgeably, and uncompromisingly as he does."-James Wolcott

"Arguably the most industrious and notorious poet-critic to brandish that hyphen like a knife between his teeth since his acknowledged master Randall Jarrell.... He often comes off as nothing so much as the Dirty Harry of the poetry beat."-David Barber, The New York Times Book Review

"William Logan is the best practical critic around."-Christian Wiman, Poetry

"Is there today a more stringent, caring reader of American poetry than William Logan? Reputations of the Tongue may, at moments, read harshly. But this edge is one of deeply considered and concerned authority. A poet-critic engages closely with his masters, with his peers, with those whom he regards as falling short. This collection is an adventure of sensibility."-George Steiner

Media reviews

Citations

• Choice, 09/01/2009, Page 0
• New York Times Book Review, 04/26/2009, Page 12