William Logan has gained a reputation as the hit man of contemporary literary criticism. Although I often find his analysis quite over the top and contentious for the sake of being contentious, his repeated challenges to consensus assessments of contemporary poets are often a bracing and welcome slap of cold water. In the June issue of The New Criterion, he takes on Richard Wilbur, Thom Gunn and Derek Walcott and trashes all three. I have some sympathy with the section on Gunn, but do believe he is quite unfair to Wilbur and Walcott (which is not balanced out by his admirable contempt for Jorie Graham). Provovative reading, in any case (a frequent feature of this magazine, which, regrettably, I do not believe has a site).
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