But great poets often produce mediocre work, bad poets can be surprisingly good, and very good poets are frequently no better than consistently above average – all of which is to say that it’s far more difficult to isolate “great poetry” than Kleinzahler (and most critics) might like to believe. We’re forced to live with a chaos of styles and a muddle of best guesses.
From David Orr: New York Times 11/13/2005
