Decades ago, T.S. Eliot (1961: 6) announced: ‘... there are these two theoretical limits of criticism: at one of which we attempt to answer the question “what is poetry?” and at the other “is this a good poem?”’ Far from having been finally asked and answered, these questions remain vital for poetry today. In fact, there is strong consensus among contemporary poets and critics that we need to investigate more closely the different ways we value poetry – not only which particular poems or aspects of poems are valued but also how and why.

In ‘Show Your Work!’, Matthew Zapruder (2009) calls for critics to explicitly lay out the reasoning behind their evaluative claims. Noting that critics ‘can do one of at least two things’, either ‘insist that something is good, or bad, and rely on the force of personality or reputation to convince people’ or else ‘write, with focus and clarity, about how the piece of art works, what choices the artist has made, and how that may affect a reader’, Zapruder ultimately wants to see in those more substantial and accurate reviews how critics move from perceptions to assessments. In the final paragraph of his essay, Zapruder states:

Zapruder’s is not the only voice calling for a more accurate and open accounting of the processes leading to aesthetic judgments. Many other poets and critics have made the same demand. Take, for example, a number of the responses included in ‘Some Darker Bouquets: A Roundtable’, a recent conversation initiated and hosted by Kent Johnson (2009).