I got my copy of George Starbuck's The Works, and it's as good as the review said it was: I know of no one living, with the possible exceptions of Greg Williamson and Sam Gwynn, with the extraordinary formal facility and inventiveness displayed in this collection. I think even Bob Grumman would be impressed: Space-Saver Sonnets And Standard Length and Breadth Sonnets (SLABS) are alone worth the price of the book.
It makes me want more, especially because I get the feeling that the editors were so conscious of the variety of Starbuck's work that they couldn't pay enough attention to development or thematic issues. There are some political poems, some love poems, some satires, and so on, all just jumbled together as far as I can tell, or rather as if they had been excised from their contexts and presented as separate jewels. Though many of the poems are jewels, the glitter eventually gets a little tiresome.
7:13:45 PM 
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