If Rich were publishing those early works now, I imagine she'd make a
lot more people's radar. I note that some of her early poems were
published in some of the same issues of Paris Review as some of Hill's
early poems. Perhaps she should have moved to Leeds, although David
Latane tells me that Norton had pretty much a monopoly on anthologising
her anyway by then.
A late addendum to the "notes" thread (I really should go to bed, but
I'm feeling quite energised at the moment): my bol.com-ordered copy of
Prynne's _Poems_ popped through the door while I was at the hospital
with Sarah. Some of the footnotes there do seem to be more like
scholarly annotations than an "integral" part of the work. I don't know
whether Prynne would agree. Hill's line about it being possibly an
"excess of scruple" to point certain things out springs to mind.
Fabulous book, though, and I mean that with the full intervention of the
etymology. Fable-ous.
> By the way, it has become fashionable in this country to dismiss
> Rich as an angry lesbian whose poetry was ruined by her politics.
> Any fair reading of _Your Native Land, Your Life_ or _Atlas of the
> Difficult World_ give this notion the lie.
Rich was and I imagine is both angry and lesbian, and some of her poetry
is very much the better for her politics. I say this being neither of
those - according to the fashionable - unpoetic things. Like Shelley's
politics ruined *his* poetry...(Shelley proved perfectly capable of
doing that all by himself...)
- Dom
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