Okay, I admit I was mesmerized by the idea of this book which I (fortunately) found on a public library shelf. And, to be honest, the conception for the collection was the best thing about it.

Now to be clear, it's not that there weren't great poems here. In fact, there is a solid mix of classic masters and contemporary writers. Sterne, Yeats, Cisneros, Teasdale, Bryant, and others alongside younger talents like Yu, Girmay, and Herford.  And, as with any collection, not every poem is equally successful. No, if you want a fine series of poems to read, there are far worse choices.

But my rating for this collection is about the execution of the anthology, the production itself. By what measure were these chosen? For what reason categorized and assembled as they were?  The book places the works into chapter "categories" like Wizardry, the Dark Arts, Household Magic, and Magicians' Lives.  How each fell into these is near anyone's guess. Worse, though, is the seeming reckless hodge-podge of choices and ordering. Some of the poems, it seems, in order to fill the quota for a category, were outright amateurish, painfully so when followed by a Dickinson or Spenser. 

It almost seemed (more than almost) that the editors did a Google search for poetry with keywords for their titles: "Houdini," "Wizard," "Charm," etc. and then grabbed them all and threw them together with a thick cover on top to hide the slapdash methodology. (Some, I should point out, the editors were unclear about their rights to publish and preemptive apology notes!)  I was embarrassed for the poets, confused about the disjointed mess I was reading, and ultimately (thankfully) will forget that I visited here.  A quick and curious gimmick for Penguin House profits.