As I say, I'm glad she's in the Norton, but it's still a wretched anthology in a hundred different ways. And those poems it includes aren't bad--they're better than most poets' work--but they are not Bogan's best stuff. I used to have four or five Nortons in various editions--when I was teaching, they'd send them to me--but I've sold them or thrown them all away, good riddance.
And Tim is right about "Women"--it's a tough poem, and seems to be hard on women, but it's hard in the right way.
She was also a terrific epigrammatist; it's too bad she didn't write more of them. For example:
Come, drunks and drug-takers; come, perverts unnerved!
Receive the laurel, given, though late, on merit; to whom
And wherever deserved.
Parochial punks, trimmers, nice people, joiners true-blue,
Get the hell out of the way of the laurel. It is deathless
And it isn't for you.
Or this:
Pasture, stone wall, and steeple,
What most perturbs the mind:
The heart-rending homely people,
Or the horrible beautiful kind?
[This message has been edited by robert mezey (edited July 05, 2004).]
|