Lewis Turco's poems get better, book after book. The Weed Garden … is Turco's best. The finest of the twenty-one syllabic poems here are almost as good as anything new I have read in years. But these poems have an elusive and cryptic profundity; to understand them it is first necessary, unfortunately, to understand some of the weaknesses in Turco's work. A good deal of the best poetry of our century is syllabic…. The success of these poems depends in part, I believe, upon the fusion of innovations of rhythmic perception with the almost inherent characteristics of English iambic tendency, stopped lines, rime and off-rime. Turco's practice is looser. It resembles the work of Marianne Moore, and it verges easily into slackness and dullness. As with Moore, Turco's virtues are often not in rhythm…. (pp. 286-87)

In addition, Turco is something of an ornamentalist. He plays with obsolete and...