On Jaswinder Bolina

I endorse with great enthusiasm the poems of Jaswinder Bolina. I firmly believe he is a poet whom we will be hearing about in the not-too-distant future. The foundations of his work are complex, and I will attempt to lay them out here. Clearly, one would deduce from reading these poems, here is someone who has studied philosophy in a more than casual manner. An acquaintance with the ideas of Wittgenstein illuminates a reading of his poems. Jaswinder's work resembles at least three contemporary American poets: John Ashbery, James Tate, and Dean Young.The last of these influences or resemblances is not surprising: he studied with Dean Young at Loyola in Chicago. As for the other two, I find him more grounded than Ashbery and thus more engaging, and just as funny as Tate.

—Richard Tillinghast, author of seven books of poetry as well as Damaged Grandeur, a critical memoir of the poet Robert Lowell. He teaches in the M.F.A. program at the University of Michigan.