Madonna of the
Cello
"[T]his volume ... is distinguished by a number of arresting poems
unlike any being written by Mr. Bagg's contemporaries, whatever their years may
be." Babette Deutsch, New York Herald Tribune
"In Madonna of the Cello the young poet Robert Bagg has achieved a
number of shorter narratives that are most exciting. They are youthful,
romantic poems, and their subject is the violence and sexuality of childhood
and young manhood. But their combinations of exuberant wit, parody, literary
hijinks on the one hand, with serious feeling on the other, are what give them
their special promise." The
Nation
The Scrawny Sonnets
"The poet's deft handling of a wide variety of forms and his
arresting colloquiality resemble, say, Browning at the stage of Men and
Women." Rowe Portis, Library Journal
"The 'Scrawny Sonnets' at the center of the volume relate the
poet's somewhat masochistic relationship with a young girl who is, at least at
the beginning, in love with someone else. The corrupt innocence of this
'scrawny, queenly' 'faery child' is gradully revealed as she flirts with the
poet, pouts, describes her young hippie boyfriend, behaves irresponsibly, but
finally becomes his dream girl-bride, a haunted moon maiden who sits outside by
the fir trees while the poet professor sleeps in safety indoors. These poems
have great potential; the speaker's alternating protectiveness, anxiety,
wonder, and joy are depicted in all their vicissitudes." Marjorie Perloff, Contemporary Literature
Body Blows
"The early poems are as vivid as they were thirty years
ago—erudite, voluptuous, wry. To his later ones those years have added a
master's somber touch. Robert Bagg's is a slender but altogether valuable body
of work." James Merrill
"If any force can be said to unify these poems, it is the power of
memory to erase distance and time and to allow the poet to roam freely over
those experiences which gave him his voice. In those poems where place is
emphasized, it is never incidental, never trivial, never 'occasional.' Rather,
these wanderings are most often trips through time—the poet's childhood, his
visits to France and to Greece, the year in Italy when he won the Prix de Rome
(1958-1959). For example, the casino in Juan-les-Pins is a metaphor for the
gamble he makes when he spins the roulette wheel on the chance he may reconnect
a love affair gone awry.
'Tromp l'âme' also has for its setting the French Riviera, where casual
cosmopolitanism so quickly seduces as well as deceives the soul. ... Some of
the poems in Body Blows are wise and subtle; others are ecstatic with the
pleasures of living or colored with the melancholy of suffering. ... At his
most lyrical, Bagg overwhelms with the richness and variety of his skill. In
'Metaphor,' the figure of speech becomes itself—a metaphor for poetry, which,
in turn, stands for the very mystery of life: Metaphor / gives every discipline
its drama; / turns sorrow into wisdom, / reptiles unto birds, / makes Proteus a
foul old seal, / energy mass, and drama deeds; / drives all the savage things
we hunt / passionately through our lives / to capture them in magic
words." William U. Eiland in Magill's
Literary Annual 1989.
"Bagg is an exceptional poet—capable de tout, as Cocteau says the
poet should be. ... No other poet today has found so true, so credible a voice
for erotic obsession and the attraction of danger." Richard Wilbur
"He has a breadth of observation beyond the usual, and an intelligent,
sharp eye which extrapolates the Maseratis and the water sprinklers, the
gimmicks and the gadgets of what we call modern civilization, and a
sophisticated mind which weaves them into painful mysteries." PULPSMITH
"I ask Robert Bagg for more poems like 'Damp Cashmere.' ... As Henry
Miller put it in The Time of the Assasins, 'we must find a new language in
which one heart will speak to another without intermediation.'" Ted Kooser
