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What if Frank O'Hara had been, literally, a court jester? Or, at the very least, tutor of the King's children? Those are questions that linger in the imagination as one reads Pattie McCarthy's Verso. McCarthy strikes a new tone in & for her poetry. At the same time, however, all of the concerns—with history, naming, gender, etymology & referentiality—that have always animated her work rage on unabated.
Pattie McCarthy has been one of our most intellectually ambitious poets—a tradition she shares with Rachel Blau DuPlessis & with H.D. And indeed with the likes of Pound & Olson. We can still count the number of women who attempt writing on such a scale on the fingers of our hands. So it is worth noting & celebrating this addition to that roster.
—Ron Silliman
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