Just so you know …

… Why Robert Lowell, Famed as a Poet, Should Be Remembered for His Prose. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)

Lowell was easily the pre-eminent poet of his generation and certainly, for good or ill, the most influential. The young today read and study Sylvia Plath by the yard, and her confessional mode of poetry — a poetry focused on the intimate details of one’s inner, psychological life — has long been the prevailing fashion among them. But Lowell was Plath’s teacher and great influence; his 1959 volume “Life Studies” effectively introduced and popularized confessional poetry in this country.