Loitering still amongst Berryman & his pals (Lowell, Jarrell, Schwartz...).

Everybody should read Jarrell's essay "The Age of Criticism", if they haven't. Now! Foretells, way in advance, the Coming of the Theorists, describes the Pomposity and Myopia of Critics (they feel themselves a little Greater than the rest, because they only read The Great), the Laziness & Lemming-ness of the rest of us (non)Readers... how the good Critic is basically a good reader, an explorer of the un-touted, and someone prepared to stick his or her neck out, rather than follow safely along after what others say... Jarrell is gently biting & hilarious on all this, I can't do it justice here.

Like his poems & Rilke translations, too.