[R. S. Gwynn]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/23/bo...2013.html?_r=0

http://therumpus.net/2014/02/david-b...m_medium=email

[Michael Juster]

Game, set, match to Biespiel.

[Chris O'Carroll]

Is there some pre-existing Biespiel vs. Cole literary feud that I’m not aware of? Because Biespiel’s essay reads like an exercise in petty score-settling. Cole writes in celebration of Walcott. Biespiel writes in celebration of how much cooler than Cole Biespiel is.

Obviously, no 1300-word New York Times piece is going to say everything there is to be said about an artist as important as Derek Walcott. But did anybody here respond to Cole’s book review with a visceral urge to kick the reviewer in the balls for getting everything wrong? For being a prose guy who flat-out fails to get poetry in general and Walcott in particular? Because Biespiel evidently did.

For me, the crucial passage is Biespiel‘s splenetic essay is this: “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be like that. Forgive me.”

[John Whitworth]

I don't think either review is worth a damn. But the only excuse for book reviews is that they are entertaining. Neither of these is particularly so. Cole's has the merit of being shorter. Oh for Bernard Shaw! Oh for Clive james!

[Brian Watson]

Joseph Brodsky wrote a good review about Walcott, must have been in the eighties. Wish I could remember the name of the book it's collected in, because the whole volume is recommended.

[Wintaka]

I have to agree with Chris and John here. Mr. Cole blurs the line between reviewing and fandom. Mr. Biespiel doesn't seem to distinguish between reviewing and scholarly criticism.

-o-