Thanks to Michael for pointing out the article, to Sharon for letting me know how to read it online, and to David for writing it in the first place. It looks as if Cheever has perpetrated a sadly minor book about a major poet, and somebody at the WSJ was smart enough to assign the review to a writer with major chops.
(As a human being, Cummings may have been difficult at best, and perhaps a lot worse than that. But as an artist, he was mind-blowingly brilliant. If there is such a thing as "greatest American poet of the 20th century," he is certainly on the short list. Dismissing him as a sentimentalist is no less blinkered and idiotic than dismissing Whitman as a long-winded pornographer or Dickinson as maiden lady who crocheted cute little verbal doilies. Geniuses skate close to the edge and take the occasional spill. They're still geniuses.)
|