Well in 'these' colonies, cricket has very little place. But as a reader of
both, I would say that Hope _is_ great in a very narrow sense, & that the
celebrated 'wit' is often interesting, but undermined by a hopeless
misogyny (although the misanthropy often works). Wright isn't quite so
'interesting' (is that the word I want?) in terms of using trad forms, but
her passion & emotional commitment come through more powerfully. And I,
unlike many of her country people, actually think her late experiments with
the ghazal among her most exciting work...
As to 'who's the greatest?' or even 'are they major?', I begin to suspect
that such ratings are of little use, & we finally must just go with 'who do
I desire to reread & reread?'
Douglas Barbour
Department of English
University of Alberta
Edmonton Alberta Canada T6G 2E5
(h) [780] 436 3320 (b) [780] 492 0521
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/dbhome.htm
People, people -
ten dead ducks' feathers
on beer can litter . . .
Winter
will change all that
Lorine Niedecker
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