Finnegan,
you are right of course about the unavailability of Rukeyser in the
80s, a situation now happily rectified. Somebody said here recently
that R. is a better poet than Adrienne Rich. Without wanting to
engage in the making of invidious comparisons, I'd tend to agree.
But it may be that we simply have too much of Rich at the moment to
make any kind of final judgment. There are a lot of weak poems in
her books. I, for one, have always thought "Diving into the Wreck"
was an obvious use of extended metaphor & that Rich knew what she
was going to say before she said it--always a sign of something
going on other than poetry. On the other hand, there are some strong
poems in the second half of _Time's Power_, I think--in particular,
one about an old woman using a walker to walk along the cliffs
above the ocean ("One Life") that might be about Rukeyser, but given
its title is probably about Eliz. Bishop.
jd
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Joseph Duemer
School of Liberal Arts, box 5750
Clarkson University
Potsdam NY 13699
315.268.3967
[log in to unmask]
http://web.northnet.org/duemer
http://www.grammarbitch.com/ppp/index.html
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Through the loop
of the rusted padlock
a blade of green
. . .
In the bed
of a rusted war truck
the farmer begins his rice
[John Brandi, from Stone Garland, 1999]
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