"Middle Earth
is Henri Cole's epiphany, his Whitmanesque sunrise. The modulation of these poems is extraordinary: they have
a continuous undersong. 'It must give pleasure,' Stevens said. So oxymoronic is pleasure-pain, in Henri Cole, that we
need to modify Stevens. But for now, poems like 'Icarus Breathing,' 'Original Face,' and 'Olympia' are the poems of
our climate. Henri Cole has become a master poet, with few peers."
-- Harold Bloom
