Monday, February 26, 2018

Gritty determination …

… ‘Dinner-Table Conversation’ – TheTLS. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)

After sitting next to Robert Lowell at a dinner party, Fainlight said that he had “infuriated” her with his dismissive attitude towards the idea of female poets.
God, I don't know where I'd be without female poets. I fell in love with H.D.'s poetry when I was about 15, having come upon "Pear Tree" one day at the Holmesburg Library. Then I fell in love with Denise Levertov's poetry. Along the way there was Sara Teasdale, Amy Lowell (a relative of Robert Lowell), Christina Rossetti, Emily Dickinson, Emily Brontë, Marianne Moore, Gene Derwood … I could go on, but you get the idea. By the way, as I recall, Robert Lowell claimed to have been influenced by Elizabeth Bishop, so maybe he was just putting Fainlight on.

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