Ofterdingen and Kropotkin

Poetry babble, as defined by precedent in these columns, is the quote on the back of the book that purports to illuminate the contents, but in practice obscures them. For the Golden Age of poetry babble, you need to go back to 2004 [...] and Ring of Fire by Lisa Jarnot. A typical chunk of verse reads, "ding dong / dug dirt / ditch dub / chimp chore" - in which Alison Cobb found "both Dante's suffering and the Johnny Cash song's self burned away by passion".