As NYTBR Giveth, So NYTBR Taketh Away

By Ron Hogan on April 17, 2006 10:00 AM

Just two weeks ago, the New York Times Book Review gave up its valuable back-page to David Lehman, the editor of the new Oxford Book of American Poetry, so he could present a cento culled from the anthology’s contents. (A cento, Lehman helpfully explained, is “a collage-poem composed of lines lifted from other sources,” in this case, 100 of the poems in this third edition of the Oxford.) It was a nice little kick-off for National Poetry Month, and a nice little plug for the anthology, so smiles all around, right?

Then, yesterday, came William Logan’s review of Lehman’s efforts, slowly but surely evaporating all that goodwill. It takes Logan about 800 words (out of just over 1,900 total) to mention the actual book under consideration, but once he gets started, he has plenty of complaints about the “bloated, earnest, largely mediocre” selection:

“[Lehman is] proud of what he calls the ‘widening of focus’ here, though it’s hard to see why this isn’t just ‘out of focus’ by another name… grotesquely overrates the wartime and baby-boom generation, still an amorphous crowd of genial talent through which Lehman offers no path.”

Is anybody else as befuddled by this critical volte-face from the Review as I am? How the heck did it come about? And just how soon did the Review editors know that the anthology they virtually provided a free full-page ad was going to get bodyslammed?

Here’s some more of Logan’s choicest criticisms:

“Lehman’s catholic taste and appreciation of minor voices make him ill at ease with major ones.”
“…vast desert spaces between the poets worth reading.”
“As Lehman nears the present, his choices grow off-balance and whimsical…pages are wasted on giddy, crowd-pleasing poets like Billy Collins and James Tate.”