SOURCE: "All = Nothing," in London Magazine, n. s. Vol. 6, No. 5, August, 1966, pp. 82-6.

Symons has been highly praised for his contributions to the genres of biography and detective fiction. His popular biographies of Charles Dickens, Thomas Carlyle, and his brother A. J. A. Symons are considered excellent introductions to those writers. Symons is better known, however, for such crime novels as The Immaterial Murder Case (1945), The Thirtyfirst of February (1950), and The Progress of a Crime (1960). In the following essay, he disparages Zukofsky's verse, labeling it insubstantial.

 An
orange
our
sun
fire
pulp

whets
us
(everyday)
for
us
eat
it
its
fire's
unconsumed 

That is the opening of 'A-14' which continues for fifty pages, and is the chief item in a special Louis Zukofsky number of Poetry (Chicago) published recently. What can be said about such writing? Well, one of the things that has been said...