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	Book News eschews gushing, but this is an incredible reference work at a reasonable price.
Reference & Research Book News

	The reading level is standard high school level and the five to seven-page essays are solid introductions to the poet. Coverage is of poets around the world, with excellent coverage on poets in the U.S.
Reference for Students Gale Group

	A gem of a reference, this competitively priced set is essential for academic libraries and strongly recommended for all others.
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	A new edition of a familiar reference work is usually a cause for celebration, and there is much to cheer about here....This will be a valuable addition to reference collections in public, high-school, and college libraries.
Booklist Reference Books Bulletin

Critical Survey of Poetry, 2d Rev. Ed.

The Critical Survey of Poetry, Second Revised Edition combines all previously published essays in the Critical Survey of Poetry from the Foreign Language Series (1984), the Supplement (1987), and the English Language Series, Revised Edition (1992) into one eight-volume edition containing all 580 previously covered poets as well as 117 poets never before covered in any Salem Press publication. These poets are arranged alphabetically, from Dannie Abse through Louis Zukofsky, and range in diversity: They are as ancient as Ovid and as recent as Li-Young Lee; as culturally diverse as Yehuda Amichai and Aimé Césaire; as geographically divided as Australia's Les Murray and Mexico's Octavio Paz.

It was the editors' goal to present the poets most often addressed in North American secondary and university curricula, as well as to present new voices that have received recognition since the previous editions of more than a decade ago: More than 30 poets born in or after 1950 are included in these pages. Finally, the increasingly global and multinational/multiethnic nature of our world has dictated the combination of the previous English Language and Foreign Language editions of the Critical Survey of Poetry into this Second Revised Edition.

The "poet essays" found in volumes 1-7 vary in length, with none shorter than 2,000 words and most significantly longer. Each essay provides ready-reference top matter, including full birth and (where applicable) death data; full listings of literary works by genre, including first dates of publication in both languages where English translation was preceded by foreign-language publication; and bibliographical sources for further study.

The format of the articles is standardized to allow predictable and easy access to the types of information of interest to a variety of users. Each poet essay is broken into the following sections: Principal poetry, Other literary forms, Achievements, Biography, Analysis, several sections on discrete poems or poetry collections, Other major works, and Bibliography. All essays are signed by academicians.

The final volume is devoted to a block of 58 "overview essays" and research aids, divided into three sections: "Criticism and Theory (7 essays), "Poetry Around the World" (45 essays), and "Research Tools" (6 teaching aids and reference appendices). Of these overview essays and reference aids, 8 are completely new, and 23 have been updated. To each of the overview essays-most of which previously lacked bibliographies for further study-the editors or updaters have added a substantial Bibliography section listing critical and interpretive books and articles, as well as anthologies where appropriate and useful.