"Since Byron, many poets have been 'provoked' into poetry by Venice; and, since Pound, that provocation has proved to be particularly fruitful for American poets. Provoked in Venice makes a rich, and distinctively personal, addition to this tradition. Rudman's Venice becomes a site where meditations on the formings and fadings of old-world cultures mingle with American memories and autobiographical details. The result is, exactly, not ordinary. As he writes: 'Nothing / normalissimo about Venice / Venice is--anti-simile. It isn't like any other / place.' And Rudman's poem isn't like any other poem.".