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Title: The Milk of Inquiry by Wayne Koestenbaum ISBN: 0-89255-239-5 Publisher: Persea Books Pub. Date: April, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.50

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Average Customer Rating: 2.38 (8 reviews)

Rating: 5
Summary: A remarkable book -- one of the best in a long time
Comment: This is contemporary poetry at its best, using language gracefully, searching for completely new ways to write, digging into the marrow of the human psyche in order to tell us something about ourselves that has never been expressed before. I'm a big admirer of Koestenbaum's and this is his best book to date, more challenging that the formal perfection of Anna Moffo, and diving even further into the experimental depths than Rhapsodies. Highly recommended if you're a lover of American poetry -- this guy is the real thing.

Rating: 4
Summary: An Irresistible Narcissism
Comment: If Koestenbaum is a Narcissist, as so many reviewers have claimed, he's the smartest and sharpest one to come along for a long while. This book gains its strength from what the other reviewers are criticizing it for: its honesty and its self-examination. But while this introspective, melancholy boy marches out across classic confessional territory, the cadence of that march and the intricacy of the imagery should make the old school blush. I thoroughly enjoyed this wild ride, and I was moved, imagining myself as that "I," the "self" without the "pity."

Rating: 1
Summary: Disappointing
Comment: Koestenbaum is a smart man with a nice facility with words, and a good ear for ringing phrases. But he seems to be spinning around in circles: there's little in this book (or in his last work) that seems very different from his first collection, "Ode to Anna Moffo." Koestenbaum has often strenuously defended his obsessions with celebrity culture and with his own personality as specific political strategies (!), but no matter how he may defend himself the narcissistic posturing and gushing over superstars gets on your nerves nonetheless. It's like being trapped in a conversation with someone oblivious to the fact you keep checking your watch as he prattles onward. "Masquerades" seems like everything else he's ever written, despite the publisher's claims on the book jacket for that poem-sequence being his masterpiece. He may be a more interesting poet someday (he certainly has the talent to be one), but in the meantime I'd suggest you skip this book and buy the work of someone more substantial like Mark Doty.