Criticism > Poetry > Bly, Robert - Publishers Weekly (review date 1999)

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Publishers Weekly (review date 1999)

SOURCE: Review of Eating the Honey of Words: New and Selected Poems, by Robert Bly. Publishers Weekly 246, no. 13 (19 March 1999): 97.

[In the following review of Eating the Honey of Words, the unsigned critic laments the lack of subtlety and development in Bly's poetry.]

Heeded in the '60s as the head apostle of the “Deep Image” school of poets; known for “read-ins” against the Vietnam War; and heralded again recently as the author of the men's movement guide Iron John, Bly has been famous several times over. But this broad set of poems [Eating the Honey of Words: New and Selected Poems] from his whole career reveals how detrimentally little his style has changed. Fond of would-be archetypal terms like “the darkness,” “fields,” “stones,” and “the body,” Bly seeks simplicity, knowledge of the collective unconscious, solidarity with nature and...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Ralph J. Mills Jr. (review date 1963)
   2. David Ray (review date 1963)
   3. Norman Friedman (review date 1967)
   4. Herbert Leibowitz (review date 1968)
   5. Anthony Libby (essay date 1972)
   6. Joyce Carol Oates (review date 1973)
   7. Donald Hall (review date 1973)
   8. Charles Molesworth (essay date 1975)
   9. Alan Helms (review date 1977)
   10. Charles Molesworth (review date 1978)
   11. Robert Bly and Wayne Dodd (interview date 1978)
   12. Charles Molesworth (essay date 1978)
   13. Philip Dacey (review date 1978)
   14. Eliot Weinberger (review date 1979)
   15. William V. Davis (essay date 1979-1980)
   16. Peter Stitt (review date 1980)
   17. Bill Zavatsky (essay date 1981)
   18. Victoria Harris (essay date 1981)
   19. Marjorie Perloff (review date 1982)
   20. Charles Molesworth (review date 1982)
   21. Howard Nelson (essay date 1984)
   22. Peter Stitt (review date 1986)
   23. Richard P. Sugg (essay date 1986)
   24. William V. Davis (essay date 1988)
   25. Walter Kalaidjian (essay date 1989)
   26. William V. Davis (essay date 1994)
   27. Publishers Weekly (review date 1999)
   28. Tom Hansen (essay date 1999)
   29. Ian Tromp (review date 2000)
   30. Publishers Weekly (review date 2001)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright

1. How to Analyze a Poem
2. Poetry