Michael Robbins While the music, art or film critic applies one medium to discuss another, the book critic jousts their subject on the same plane; as such, book reviews become something akin to knife fights, taxing spiritually and intellectually. The poet Michael Robbins’ “On Reviewing” piece for Printers Row Journal buries such albatrosses as the Writer’s Fraternity/Sorority—no negative reviews; we’re all writers here—and the Kakutani-esque reliance on the hoary asunder; Robbins takes to them as Samson did the Philistines—sans jawbone—and pays tribute to the review as literary form in words which make one wish to join the canon.
