Great Regulars: Earlier this year, in a rare interview

he granted the Oxonian Review, [Geoffrey] Hill astutely remarked that "the poet's public role is to be first and foremost a poet. . . . it all turns on the matter of intrinsic quality. The public role of the poem is to be a stronghold of the imagination"--which may, in part, explain the piercing intensity of the author's photograph adorning Selected Poems. An unforgettable image, it attracts and repels, almost as if to say, "Read my work, savor my writing; but, beware--although I am palpably here, seducing you from this cover--do not seek me in the poetry for you shall not find me there."

from Judith Fitzgerald: The Philadelphia Inquirer: Hill's gorgeous, stately, allusive verse

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Arguably his generation's finest practitioner, [rob] mclennan's myriad strengths predominantly lie in his life-long quest to stay afloat in language's slippery straits, its treacherous depths, its perilously heady spindrifts where polyphony's the aim and compression's the game. New readers step into the flux, the flow, the undertow of a mclennan "poem" in much the same way landlubbers brave an ocean's waves on a wing and a prayer: Half the challenge involves conquering each cresting onslaught, the other half resides in coming safe home to common ground (buttressed by the notion the captain's skill knows no bounds).

from Judith Fitzgerald: The Globe and Mail: Books: Heavy horsepower

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