SOURCE: "The Search for Lost Innocence: Karl Shapiro's The Bourgeois Poet," in The Hollins Critic, Vol. I, No. 5, December, 1964, pp. 1-16.

In the following stylistic analysis of The Bourgeois Poet, Rubin derides the design of The Bourgeois Poet, maintaining that the only unifying element is the force of the poet's personality, which fails to add coherence to the poems comprising the volume.

1.

In Baltimore, walking in Victorian-movie snow it occurred to me: seek for the opposite. I'm for the Faustian supermarket. The opposite enthralls me.

The Bourgeois Poet

It has been instructive, and certainly very amusing, to watch the reaction to Karl Shapiro's new book of verse, The Bourgeois Poet. A few optimistic souls have pronounced it a significant breakthrough, a beacon light by which young poets may henceforth proceed through the foggy seas of contemporary verse. Many others have termed it notes toward a poem, raw material...