A few quick thoughts on Mark Scroggins' comments on the Breeze review:

It's true that matching up a book of poems with its antecedent influences & echoes is not enough, does not account for originality or the unique qualities of said book. It's not enough simply to "place" a book in "tradition".

However, a couple things occur to me : first, a review - even a thorough reading - can never express or replicate the "quiddity" of its subject. That's asking too much. The reviewer is not capable of transmitting seraphically the author's "own terms" - each of us works within our own frame of reference to some extent. And some freedom of response should be allowed to the reviewer, too - within limits of fairness & truth & accuracy, that is.

Second, it seems to me that one of the roles of the reviewer is to "introduce" the new work into the literary world which already exists : and a key part of doing that is to find reference points for the new within that world.

In the Breeze review, it seems to me, I noted differences as well as similarities between John Latta's book, and the general poetic trend from which in my view it emerged - the trend for which Stevens, for me anyway, is exemplary. You can argue with the idea of singling out Stevens. But then I think you'd have to deny several of the Stevens affinities in Latta's work which I pointed out.