5.26.2004

So we pass through 2 decades of "postmodern" poetry (see JL's continuing reflections). & then comes along Franz Wright, carrying around some of the traditional charismatic baggage of the poet-figure (lost son of famous lost poet, confessional survivor, with psychic limp) we were supposed to have left behind. A sort of diminished echo effect of the "traditional office".

Yet maybe diminished is not the right word. His poems are quite effective; you can hear that same sound of rueful emotional directness, the strong feeling and simplicity (I identify this with the midwest) in some of his father's poetry.

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