Charles North is the master of multitasking--all experience opens to him
at every moment--as well as the master tout court. He belongs on the
summit of the American Parnassus.--Harry Mathews
North is a younger compatriot of O'Hara and Ashbery, and his nonchalance
aspiring to greatness finds the same 'risks inside art' that other poets
found in the city. Juggling a satiric self-consciousness with a 'strange
mischief, ' North pulls death-defying propositions and playful mockeries
from thin air.--Publishers Weekly
The business of examining exactly what one means is central to North's
concept of the role of the poet, and he is especially alert to the way
particulars and ideas interact in our constructions of meaning. The urge
to hold out 'particulars' to the reader is mediated through an alert,
sophisticated consciousness insistently aware of convention and
genre.--Mark Ford
The challenge of writing about the sensual qualities of New York City
which seems so tired, by North's pen becomes transcendent again. And
that's only one of the things his poetry accomplishes. He is witty when
wit seems all but lost, gorgeous when gorgeousness is supposed to have
crawled off to wherever Frank O'Hara's odes come from.--Ange Mlinko
Charles North's poetry has received high praise from a wide variety
of aesthetic camps. Among his awards are a Foundation for Contemporary
Arts grant, two National Endowment for the Arts grants, four Fund for
Poetry Awards, and a Poets Foundation Award.
