More X.J. Kennedy
My essay, "The Elegiac X.J. Kennedy," is in the spring issue of Hopkins Review. For those of you who were at the last West Chester Conference, it is a cleaned-up and expanded version of the talk I gave on the Kennedy tribute panel. I know Joe is pleased because it is apparently the first time in more than six decades of publication that anyone has written at length about his non-humorous poetry, which is more extensive than even I appreciated until I started in on the work.
It is the first time I have written something longer than a book review on a living poet, and it did make it easier; Joe--as you would expect--was a very good sport.
I am grateful to David Yezzi for asking me to rework the talk for publication.
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