The time has probably come to admit that the notion of an avant-garde is no longer useful in discussing contemporary literature. How can there be an avant-garde without a mainstream? Avant-garde de quoi? one must ask. Establishment institutions - universities, museums, foundations, commercial galleries, even the state - have embraced the idea of experimental art for so long that the avant-garde is now a safely domesticated concept, just another traditional style.

Paradoxically, the simpler poetry is, the more difficult it becomes for a critic to discuss intelligently. Trained to explicate, the critic often loses the abi…

Like the intricately rational web of theology woven around the irrational mysteries of faith, the sober explanations of institutions for hoarding literary reli…

What does an instinctively popular poet do in contemporary America, where serious poetry is no longer a popular art? The public whose values and sensibility he…

By and large, horror fiction is the most difficult to domesticate because part of the point is that it's one step ahead - or behind - everybody else's taste. A…

His fables so brutally imposed, sweated by heart. Their morality is a prison which I don't want to penetrate anymore.

The real difference between Byron and Shelley is this: those who understand and love them rejoice that Byron died at thirty-six, because if he had lived he wou…