SOURCE: "The Loam of the Poem," in American Book Review, Vol. 16, No. 1, April-May 1994, p. 20.

In the following review, Saverse provides a negative assessment of the poems comprising The Old Horsefly.

In an essay on Wordsworth, Matthew Arnold writes, "Wordsworth was a homely man, and himself would certainly never have thought of talking of glory as that which, after all, has the best chance of not being altogether vanity. Yet we may well allow that few things are less vain than real glory." Karl Shapiro's latest book of poems [The Old Horsefly] is marred by the established poet's confusion of ego and work. What is missing is the "real glory" of excellent poems; what is present, the spectacle of an old artist too strongly affirming—and therefore doubting—his own poetic significance. The book is replete with self-conscious diatribes against his competitors, diatribes whose humor, if they have any...