[Maryann Corbett]

I like this for its unusual conceit; good things can be done with riffing on a stock expression.

If we're comparing poems, though, it seems to me that while this one offers different aspects of human evil, they all point in the same direction and they contain no surprises. If I have to choose (and that's the point of this event, is it not?) then I prefer the nuances of sonnets 6 and of 1.

**I've come back to this because a bit more thought reveals another part of my resistance to it. The poem seems to say that we could throw out the evils of history and culture and be left with essentially good humanity. I'm afraid I can't agree with that aspect of it.

**Back again. Readers have questioned the epigraph, but it seems to me that the purpose of the epigraph is to establish a connection between the proverb about not throwing out the baby, etc. and Things Medieval. While the epigraph itself says the lore is bogus, I'm still just a wee bit resistant to the connection that starts off the poet's riffing. Clearly, the connection worked for the poet, though it doesn't work for me, and that's the sort of thing no one can help.