Instruct: Classify a given review into positive or negative sentiment.
Query: Mediocre

A friend of mine suggested I read this collection because she knows I prefer metrical verse. Unfortunately, although many of the poems in this selection are formal, they aren't all that good. The metrical poems are proficient though not deft (one wishes for the music of a Donald Justice or cleverness of an Anthony Hecht), but the poems rarely involve you; the poems seem too much like diary work, which is great for the writer but not so great for others. I am not a poetry critic, but I can say this book isn't what I thought it was going to be. I figured a selected poems would be the best poems by the poet. After reading it, I am not up to reading her life's work to see if they were, in fact, the best.