An odd sort of collection; of essays on poetry and on poets which stand alone, coupled with reviews of new poetry books which were clearly written for a moment in time. The essays which stand alone are fascinating and insightful; the book reviews have snatches of insight, but are less able to be read out of their original context and without knowledge of the poetic corpus under review.

Got an arc from Netgalley in the exchange for an honest review.

This was not my cup of tea but I still finished this book. Sadly I'm not the right demographic reader of this type of book. So I can not comment much.

But thank you net galley for the arc of this book. 😊

If I had all the time in the world, I would enjoy reading this. I'm not an expert in poetry, and would appreciate the opportunity to sit down and actually slowly go through this with the original material being critiqued. But because I am borrowing this book from NetGalley, who I thank sincerely, I simply don't have the time to sit down and properly enjoy a book of this magnetite. I highly recommend this book to lovers of poetry. I only read about 20% but the writing is superb and the limited experience I had with it was wonderful. I really hope to cross it again in the future.

William Logan presents a work of poetic critique and reflection that would be essential paired reading in a range of literature and composition courses. Erudite, insightful, literary, Logan probes what poetry is in a meaningful and dialogue-provoking manner.

Name: Broken Ground
Author: William Logan
Genre: Poetry
Rating: 4/5
Review:
Broken Ground: Poetry and the Demon of History by William Logan collects some of his critical writings and offers a nice glimpse into both his strengths and weaknesses as a critic.
Even with his inflated sense of self, he offers a reader a lot of insight into the ways in which a poem can be more or less effective. Paying attention to the elements he looks at within a poet's work helps us to also look at those same things. We may disagree with him about how well they succeed, especially if it is something outside his narrow preference, but looking at a poem through the eyes of a poet is useful for those of us who are not poets (in the sense of verse) even if we are trained in literature but mostly prose, which he views with disdains except, maybe, in "small doses."

William Logan writes with grace and fluency: he presents informed critical opinions with a commitment often lacking in contemporary criticism. Re-reading of his chosen authors was, in my case, sparked off by his views which are nothing, if not controversial.
The review of Gorgeous Nothings, a book dealing with Emily Dickinson’s use of envelopes and scrap paper points up the academic sterility of the discussion about the meaning of these fragments. Of course, Dickinson would use the paper to hand; paper, Logan reminds us, was an expensive commodity. Similarly, Dickinson’s use of capitals and dashes, much argued over among critics of the work, were as much the work of printers as a precocious technique of careful phrasing. Dickinson “had no reason to prepare printed copy”.
There are judgments here that are more questionable. Whether Kipling had the “emotional range of a schoolboy” (whatever that is) is, I think, an American misunderstanding of British reticence. Kipling’s ambiguous stance on the motives, meaning and effects of British empire building could be a more useful channel into his complex emotional tonalities.
The essay on Geoffrey Hill cuts in at an odd angle. Mercian Hymns, Hill’s finest work, is barely mentioned. An account of Logan’s somewhat star-struck encounter with Hill takes up space that could usefully have dealt with the resonances of the volume – “I liked that”, said Offa, “sing it again”.
Philip Larkin’s ‘I remember, I remember’ is handled in a dogged, documentary-style analysis which brings in railway-station architecture, the bombing of Coventry and the tracks between London, Bristol, Swansea and Liverpool plus the ferry crossing to Belfast. Larkin’s distinctive laconic and wry verse style gets lost in this welter of references.
There is a fine intelligence running through this volume. My concern is that this quality leans to the tangential which muddles its thrust; when on target, it is superb.