in the absence of style a poem is hamstrung

... precision and technique are paramount. Without them a genuine style cannot be achieved, and no matter how clever the conceit, how deeply felt the emotion, in the absence of style a poem is hamstrung, its race brought to a premature halt. I can imagine several ways to measure the success of a poem or collection. As a common reader, I ask whether I want to read a poem or book again, while as a critic I ask whether I am compelled to write about the works in question. Poets, I suspect, ask whether there is anything to be learned, imitated, or, as T.S. Eliot had it, stolen. But the true test of style is more visceral. Does the poem prompt its reader, arrested yet suddenly moved, to abandon the book and take a breathless lap around the room?

- Nicholas Bradley, reviewing his selection criteria in picking the books in his omnibus review selected from Canadian poetry titles published in 2021, in the "Letters in Canada 2021" issue of University of Toronto Quarterly.