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A review by margaret45678
Avidly Reads Poetry by Jacquelyn Ardam
medium-paced
I think I had the wrong idea of what this book was going to be, and it's probably mostly my own fault. It was more focused on writing (as opposed to reading) poetry than I thought it would be, but maybe I took the title of the book/series a bit too literally. I wasn't expecting it to deal mainly with US-based poetry, but in hindsight it makes sense that such a short volume would zero in on a particular national tradition, rather than trying to make claims about all poetry everywhere throughout all of human history.
About 25% of the time, the writing was really cringey and obnoxious, like typical elder millennial white girl Buzzfeed writer stuff. Ardam is at least a bit self-aware but at times it felt quite performative.
When Ardam stopped trying to be all "how do you do fellow kids" it was perfectly fine. The first and last chapters (sonnets and internet poems) were probably the best. Her reflections on teaching poetry classes throughout the book were also really interesting.
About 25% of the time, the writing was really cringey and obnoxious, like typical elder millennial white girl Buzzfeed writer stuff. Ardam is at least a bit self-aware but at times it felt quite performative.
When Ardam stopped trying to be all "how do you do fellow kids" it was perfectly fine. The first and last chapters (sonnets and internet poems) were probably the best. Her reflections on teaching poetry classes throughout the book were also really interesting.