the few critical points that are made seem fair (nice images but too little clarity and personality, as i gather them) but the review does too little to contextualize itself and spends too much time on a false nostalgia that’s pretty useless to this reader. to say conoley “lived through the theory wars” seems a lot like saying “good thing colonialism’s over with! now we can reminisce.”

i know again the m.o. of the review is all tongue-in-cheek, but if the reviewer is supposed to be somehow engaging in a dialogue with the poet it would be nice if the poet were actually allowed a word here & there to make her own case. if i hadn’t seen gillian read recently i would have no fucking clue whether i had any interest in seeing her work based on this piece.

which isn’t to say i don’t like jordan davis, because he’s funny & i do. all i’m suggesting is that there must be a way to make it hilarious and energetic and davis-y and still functional as a review, mustn’t there? contrary to what many might think, maybe jordan’s not trying hard enough?