Randall Jarrell was more persuasive about Lowell's poetry than I found the poems to be. Wilfrid Sheed had a curious remark in a review of Poets in Their Youth: "The one thing she records is Lowell going on like a school kid about favorite lines (the best three from Yeats, your own best three), which helped me tangentially with my Lowell problem. It seems he was strictly a line poet, string them as you will, so that his poems are like all-star teams that haven't practiced together." ("Hard Times for Poets", collected in Essays in Disguise)
Randall Jarrell was more persuasive about Lowell's poetry than I found the poems to be. Wilfrid Sheed had a curious remark in a review of Poets in Their Youth: "The one thing she records is Lowell going on like a school kid about favorite lines (the best three from Yeats, your own best three), which helped me tangentially with my Lowell problem. It seems he was strictly a line poet, string them as you will, so that his poems are like all-star teams that haven't practiced together." ("Hard Times for Poets", collected in Essays in Disguise)
ReplyDeleteThere is much in what you say, George. My feeling about the poems is much the same as yours.
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