SOURCE: "Embarrassed Palefaces," in The Nation, Vol. 246, No. 21, May 28, 1988, pp. 756-60, 62.

In the following review, Klawans criticizes the works featured in American Poetry Since 1970: Up Late for their unworldliness and absence of emotion, although he notes their wit and clever observation.

Randall Jarrell once remarked that the poet in our time is like a maker of stone hand axes. That was forty years ago. From the vantage point of the 1980s, most poets would agree that Jarrell didn't know how good he had it. Contemporary poetry, according to the conventional wisdom, is that which goes unread. It is, however, argued over, and with a vehemence that sometimes seems livelier than the poems themselves. Consider this sampler of recent invective.

Mary Kinzie: "Ashbery is the passive bard of a period in which the insipid has turned into the heavily toxic."

Louis Simpson: "Most American poets lack a theme…. After...