A review by pmgilger
The Hatred of Poetry by Ben Lerner

2.0

This was such a disappointment. In this work, Lerner tries to defend poetry (moving from “hatred” of poetry to a defense of the art), but he spends what feels like the first half of the piece ripping a specific poem to shreds because it’s “bad” and not what a poem should be. I understand, and Lerner points out, that how poetry is received is subjective, but this makes the rest of his argument defending the art as a whole feel hypocritical. He doesn’t satisfactorily harmonize his own preferences or hatred of specific poems with his defense of capital-P poetry. 

Further, this entire piece feels pretentious and snobby. By this, I don’t mean that Lerner uses insider terminology. I studied poetry and still didn’t understand the points he was trying to make most of the time. He had such an opportunity here to make poetry accessible, but the result is a dull, run-on thought piece that would make me hate poetry had I not independently been a fan already.