MixedThe Boston ReviewSeidel’s love of death is redolent of Rilke and Rimbaud. But in Ooga-Booga, we also hear the jazzy couplets of T.S. Eliot, the misanthropy of Anthony Hecht, and the self-involved yet skilled syllabic rhythms of Robert Lowell ... Devoted readers of Seidel will recognize not only people and places, but such recurring themes as the woes of Milton’s Satan—a \'soul bereft in its torment\'—and the gifted \'American in Paris\' who, like Henry Adams, assimilates but remains apart, casting a puritanical eye on the merry-making. Also found here is a mirroring of bifurcated selves, slaves and masters changing places ... Too many of these poems seem to be drafts of other, better poems, sharing not only characters and places, but also lines and metaphors. The inclusion of lesser poems that share material with stronger poems forces the reader to wonder why Seidel included them at all, whether he deliberately disregards his own craft or feels himself near the end of his career and must publish the dregs as well as the fine vintage of his art.
