Library Journal
Balding, bearded, and burly, his tattooed forearms folded defiantly across his chest, Disch stares out from the dust jacket like a bartender telling a customer he can't have any more, and his prose reads the same. There are critics who find something of value in everything they read, but Disch, the author of nearly 30 books of poetry and fiction (The Priest: A Gothic Romance, LJ 3/15/95), isn't one of these. He hates as prodigiously as he loves. "There are simply too many poets and too little time to read them all," he writes, and the critic's job, as he sees it, is to praise and damn in equal measure; otherwise, "Gresham's law is bound to kick in" and "bad poetry will drive out good." A lively writer, Disch is guaranteed to provoke, though in the end his pronouncements seem more a matter of personal temperament than of rock-hard right and wrong. For specialized collections.David Kirby, Florida State Univ., Tallahassee