That's a great piece about the Claude Glass. I don't think it's over the top at all! And why shouldn't it be, anyway - it isn't a review, it's a close reading of something that grips you, whcih should include WHY it grips you...
I spent some time looking for over-neat clinching couplets, and while I did find some closing couplets, the most noticeable effect I noticed was that after a while every poem I saw seemed to have this thing going on, and then I thought: well, that's just what poems DO at the end, surely? And it worked for Shakeapeare. I'd even argue that he did it MORE than Donaghy.
I was also thinking about the progression idea. Dave's got it, I think - the movement from cleverness and maybe a slight brittleness to a deeper, more fluid, more - is aged the wrong word, as in oak-? - outlook. And elan, isn't that a great word.
One other "clever" poem I love is "Shibboleth." He said he wrote that out of the experience of being American and moving to London, which I find howlingly funny. Yes! Fortunately I'm long past that anxiety now but it is a very, chillingly, funny poem.
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