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OK, let me take another crack at it since Keston S. asks. I'm certainly NOT suggesting that one has to be "in the field" to write about X or Y. All I meant--and it just seems so common-sensical to me that the publication of a book or two of POEMS hardly qualifies someone to write an omnibus review on (mostly theoretical) books on poetry. As I say throughout the article, the situation of poetry is special in this instance because it wouldn't come up in other fields. When I said "we" I simply meant that it doesn't usually happen in other areas but it's par for the course in poetry reviewing. Look through TLS etc. and you'll see what I mean. I don't think there are problems in most other areas. You won't find, say, a prof. of economics reviewing Elaine Showalter's new HYSTERICS or whatever that book is called--although it would in fact be quite conceivable. Marjorie Perloff %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%