Katha Pollitt has an extraordinarily good ear. Her lines are almost always exactly right, and there is a sense of finish and finality to her work one rarely sees nowadays in poets young or old—the diction clean and precise, the rhythms clear and effective. One can hear all of these virtues in "Blue Window," the opening poem of her Antarctic Traveller. (p. 644)

Pollitt is also refreshing in that she is not afraid to write beautifully. She has a fine sensibility and does not try to hide it under a hard or aggressive mask. She is original enough to shun the predictable clichés of "beautiful" description and carefully avoids sentimentality when presenting emotions. As a result she can create bewitchingly effective scenes when she chooses, as in "Moon and Flowering Plum" from her "Five Poems from Japanese Paintings."… (p. 645)

One needn't remember Marianne Moore's definition of poetry...