Book review of the month, already

Via  Bill Manhire,  Michael Robbins reviews Postmodern American Poetry: A Norton Anthology, ed. by Paul Hoover, for Poetry Foundation. Key phrase:

the whole boatload of vacuous bullshit

Oh, you want more? How about:

This new realism is the old realism by now, institutionalized to such an extent that talk of its oppositional value is wishful thinking. Or, more precisely, it is ideology.

Or:

the soi-disant avant-garde has no monopoly on falsely describing a narrow-minded past

Or:

Anthologies necessarily break down as they approach the present, since it is impossible to judge the worth and durability of contemporary production.

Well, yes. As noted here previously.