April 22, 2008

Criticism Starts

“Criticism starts– it has to start– with a real passion for reading. It can come in adolescence, even in your twenties, but you must fall in love with poems. You must fall in love with what we used to call “imaginative literature.” And when you are in love that way, with or without provocation from good teachers, you will pass on to encounter what used to be called the sublime.” –Harold Bloom, The Paris Review Interviews, II