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Rating: 
Summary: The Willed vs the Felt
Review: A remarkably self-indulgent first book by a writer too old to be this immature and irresponsible with the language. All formal flair...and very little else. Clover DOES experiment wonderfully and fascinatingly with the surface shimmer of his subjects, but this kind of willed approach to the making of poems results, too often I think, in work that borders on the offensive. (A meditation on the Holocaust, for example, becomes a light-hearted, witty exercise in form.) This is a major award--the Whitman--and likely to make Clover's career. Hopefully he will earn the coming gush of praise with a more deeply felt second book.
Rating:
Summary: Fly-By-Nite
Review: I read this book on recommendation and I am rather disappointed, but then again the friend who recommended the book to me is also in love with performance poetry. And now it makes sense: I bet if read aloud, if PERFORMED, this work would astonish me, for it is mostly made up of fly-by-night form-bound lines that have very little substance on the pages but I bet sound real nice out loud.I can't recommend this; in fact, I suggest serious poetry readers stay away from it.
Rating:
Summary: Okay
Review: It's a first book, give the guy a break. If all poets were growing from ground this fecund, then perhaps reading the majority of official verse culture journals wouldn't be such a chore. Yeah, he's not exactly Celan, but Celan wasn't Celan in his first book, and neither was Ashbery, Vallejo or (enter poetic hero here). Is Clover the next poetic giant? Probably not. Is he already more interesting and worth reading than, say, Dave Smith, Louise Gluck or Billy Collins? Oh yeah. Autumn Alphabets is a very nice poem in here, along with the more anthologized The Map Room and El Perefico, or Sleep. Clover only seldomly annoys with overly-self-impressed cleverisms (tempted to say Cloverisms, but his poetry isn't checking itself out in the mirror as much as, say, his critical essays are). Anyhow, he has some ambition, pletty of talent, and (most impressively to me) a very genuine sense of the poetic line.
Rating:
Summary: Okay
Review: Okay, I can't imagine who'd want to read this book, but let's hypothetically say that you do. I see used copies everywhere--no doubt because it was thrust upon the members of the Academy of American Poets, who then relegated it to their "recycle" pile. So if you're intent on getting it, visit a thrift store, where discounted copies abound.
Rating: 
Summary: Hot Ice
Review: There is much that is surprisingly warm in this theoried and avant aesthetically conscious amalgamation. And while it surges with elitist-hip pretensions, it grooves to a back-beat of pop and populist rhythms, with many-hued chops against a background of blue. It is a cartoon philosopher and the future of anarchism railing against the bars with a baby bottle. Worth many reads. You can definitely learn from it.
Rating:
Summary: Hot Ice
Review: There is much that is surprisingly warm in this theoried and avant aesthetically conscious amalgamation. And while it surges with elitist-hip pretensions, it grooves to a back-beat of pop and populist rhythms, with many-hued chops against a background of blue. It is a cartoon philosopher and the future of anarchism railing against the bars with a baby bottle. Worth many reads. You can definitely learn from it.
Rating: 
Summary: Read it
Review: Very Good Book. I learn English from it. No need to live in '60s, Clover brings them to you. I read for wife and she kick me out. I still have book though, makes good fire. I recommend to anyone who needs encouragement.-
Rating:
Summary: you kill me
Review: who isn't happy to be a killing machine?,joshua clover's meditation on small-town violence meeting today's tough issues is a profound meditation on small-town... no matter how far we back away from ourselves this scene will not reveal itself as a movie set. clover tails stephen wright on the going native episode, plucking observations about the state of words from the world of fin de siecle or whatever wherever with something like glee, but not glee, exactly, but without the staid proprietary stare of big time talkers in verse. I am trying to invent a way for you to buy me back-- quote marks are so 20th c. clover's what poetry reads to itself late this afternoon.
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