SOURCE: "Of Exhibitionist Poetry, Redwoods, and the Fluid Narrative Dramatic," in The Antioch Review, Vol. XXVI, No. 2, Summer, 1966, pp. 265-80.

In this excerpt, Allen reviews Discrepancies and Apparitions, admiring the directness of Wakoski's work and calling her "our most exciting younger American poetess."

Surely when Diane Wakoski says, "I think it [poetry] is only interesting in proportion to how interesting the person who writes it is," she is attacking new criticism at one of its weakest stomachs. I don't fully agree with her, but the nerve of the girl! The happy thing is, most of her poems [in Discrepancies and Apparitions] work wonderfully, work because they are direct perceptions of a sensitive contemporary female, because this particular woman is terribly interesting. For her, "the sense of disguise is a / rattle-snake and / it's easy to wake up and find it curled in your shoe"—as she says beginning a...