Why are the customer reviews here so arch and mean? "Pity the Bathtub" is hardly an obscure book. It is about to go into its third printing, and this I heard from the director of the Press that published it. On top of that, Harvey's book, along with a few other first books, have made the big NY Houses suddenly pay a little more attention to poets early in their careers due to the sales of these books. All that aside, this is a fine debut. And if use of language is the key to predicting a poet's career, Matthea Harvey will have a long and August one ahead of her.

I am an avid reader of poetry, and Matthea Harvey's book is one of the best I've encountered in the past five years or so (at least). Her innovative work with form and syntax allows for both remarkable fluidity and sharp complexity. I have been getting to know her poems--at times reading them straight through for the sheer pleasure of the rhythmic and dramatic build, and at times focusing in on the rich,interconnecting layers. Her poems manage to do many things at once--and successfully. They are both fierce and delicate, playful and serious, emotional and intellectual, light-hearted and searingly intense--and I imagine this may cause jealous sparks from those who are incapable of navigating the territory of sharp and playful contradiction. But it seems to me that the two dissenting reviewers of this collection have more of a personal stake in the matter than the positive reviewers whose opinions they attack. I have never had the pleasure of meeting Miss Harvey, and I am not in the habit of writing internet reviews. But the dissenting voices smacked far too much of professional envy, rather than rigorous thought, and I loved this collection far too much to let their words stand uncontested.

It is true that many books have what, in Iowa and elsewhere, are called "themes." But (in deference to Ms. Jones) perhaps things are different in Houston.

Nevertheless, the tonal range of Harvey's book is its chief pleasure - from the playful "The Need for Consistency" to the raging heaven and hell of "Frederick Courteney Selous's Letters to His Love" to the visionary solemnity of "Translation." Anyone reading without the blindfold of personal resentment will be able to appreciate Harvey's always precise and often beautiful lines. An impressive debut. I recommend this book highly.