Ciardi possesses an authentic poetic voice with a technical mastery of his craft to match his spiritual affinity for it. (p. 21) [Ciardi] focuses with remarkable clarity on the elements upon which one builds a theme into a poem. Ciardi is passionate about writing poetry; he recognizes full well the axiom that it is the poem which gives the theme its force.
Like Sinyavsky, Ciardi has been deemed a subversive by certain mealy-mouthed inquisitors, but his true subversiveness eludes the wranglings of House committees. For Lives of X strips away the "old lies" to reveal the rag-and-bone shop that surrounded the youthful poet's growth to manhood: �...
I read [Ciardi's "Tenzone"] as a competition in which both [the Soul and Body, the poem's speakers,] attack the Soul: the Soul first attacks itself; then the Body joins in and finishes the job. But the poem is a debate, though the Soul does not realize it. The question at issue is "Which writes the poetry?" The Soul begins with a wryly ironical description of the poet as a performer on the lecture circuit, inspired, witty, well-paid, lucent—"a gem of s...
No one (least of all, I imagine, John Ciardi) would call "In Fact," his ninth collection of poetry, a great book or even a particularly important one. But it is damned enjoyable reading—a statement that can rarely be made about any new book of poetry. It gets in some good licks at evil and awakens our response to joy. It is a day-by-day sort of book—often as familiar as the bulletin board in the suburban Co-op. None of the poems are particularly ambitious, as are those in Ciardi&...
