Ange Mlinko, perhaps best known for her work as poetry editor for The Nation, began attracting attention as a poet about 25 years ago, and rightly so. Even her earliest work displayed erudition, intelligence, creativity, and a broad range of poetic styles. That range, though, was a curse as well as a blessing because she sometimes seemed to be trying on techniques and ideas rather than speaking confidently in her own voice.
With her 2010 book, Shoulder Season, her publisher, Coffee House Press, unintentionally put its finger on that problem by including a blurb that described the poet as “half John Ashbery, half Harriet the Spy.” I am sure the Ashbery comparison was meant as a compliment, though for many readers it must have come across as a way of describing her poetry as long on lush surfaces but short on content. I assume that the Harriet the Spy comparison was intended to praise Mlinko’s formidable powers of observation, but the cutesiness strikes me as unclear and patronizing.
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