Kate, of the two poems you posted by Wilbur, only the one about the snowman strikes me as sentimental -- in fact, Wilbur's heavy use of personification almost ruins it. Also, I don't think that even a small child is so unsophisticated that it would feel the emotions that Wilbur ascribes to the boy. Indeed, if the boy helped to make the snowman, he knows it is only made of snow and has no life.
Nonetheless, I accept the poem at face value and even like it. If such personification has meaning to Wilbur, I can go along with it.
It seems to me that Wilburs 1974 poem is about a natural phenomenon and nothing more, so I don't see how you can consider it sentimental. However, his final line is too derivative of Frost's "Spring Pools" (one of Wilbur's favorite poems), so much so that the poem is almost ruined by it.
I very much like the owl poem. It always pleases me to see an older poet producing excellent poetry; it gives me hope for my own future as a poet.
[This message has been edited by Caleb Murdock (edited January 27, 2001).]
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