Looked like a hatchet job to me. The article, unusually for an article in the gray lady having to do with poetry, is not a review of the collected poems of someone dead or a review of Jorie's latest, but rather a general attack on a critic on a hot streak who tends to buck the conventional wisdom, and, indeed, the attack on Kirsch's latest book of poetry was the standard-issue condemnation of metrical work. It's clearly a counterattack of some kind, but I somehow doubt Kirsch is the ultimate target. Rather, I suspect (and if I'm reading too much into this, rein me in) that the broader target was the whole Dana Gioia/West Chester thing, given that those dastardly metricists are starting to get some press, some faculty positions, and even a bit of dosh here and there.
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