SOURCE: Carruth, Hayden. “Up, Over, and Out: The Poetry of Distraction.” The Tamarack Review (winter 1967): 61-9.

In the following review of Birney's Selected Poems, Carruth criticizes the poet's notational revisions to previously published poems, in which he replaced traditional marks of punctuation with unconventional spacing.

Normally when a reviewer is confronted by a book he does not like, but whose author is nevertheless a distinguished elder of the tribe, he is inclined to say nothing about it—in one thousand nice, ripe nothing-words. After all, what is the point of belabouring work that is done: it offers so little likelihood of significant alteration and improvement. Let it rest; like everything, it will seek and in due course find its own level; probably sooner than later. Let its author take what comfort he can from the knowledge that he has worked hard and honestly, has done the best he...