Looking through the poems in a year's worth of LRBs -- boys! big words! -- I notice less love than I remembered (this year, anyway) for Robin Robertson, Hugo Williams, John Koethe, Fred Seidel, about as much as I expected for August Kleinzahler and John Ashbery, and more than I recalled for Mark Rudman, Charles Simic, Robert Crawford.

Would Crawford make a bigger dent here if he weren't standing in Paul Muldoon's shadow, aye he would. As would Minhinnick, but that's a case where we're ok with what we've got. As for these shores, Rudman and Simic always do well with a short song on a big stage, and that's more than I'll give 90% of the rest of the best rappers alive.

Kleinzahler occupies the Larkin niche these days doesn't he: a Cthulhu Beanie Baby, eating the face off any cozy value. Wonder what he'd sound like without the mean spirits. Still, his poem "September" about watching the SFGiants and the Moneyballs fade is a minor classic of the "no joy in mudville" vein.