Douglas wrote (of Hope):
>Maybe it's his strong anti-modernism
>I tend to dislike, even as I admrie his Swiftian humour, he is after all
>Oz'a 'greatest 18th century poet'...
Yes, he's very peculiar in that way (perhaps very Australian?). I think
Kevin Hart wrote that he was more properly an heir of Rilke and the
Romantics, in a Silver dress, which seems pretty accurate to me - perhaps
someone who's read the book can comment...
However, that poem I quoted is pretty amazing for a misogynist to write
in 1965, yes? Especially with its awareness of the significance of
things like domestic violence and its attack on the authority of the
husband, and for its passionate denunciation of female oppression. I
mean, especially when you look at the gender politics of more
"progressive" poets like Olson, who I find much more troublingly
misogynist. Hope was good friends with Gwen Harwood and had no problem
with the idea that women could write poems, which despite the staggering
contributions of women to modernism seems sometimes a bit of a block with
the so-called avant garde.
Not that gender's any way to read poetry, just interesting.
Cheers
Alison
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