"she’s a contemporary of Plath and Sexton, and the contrast between their shrill dementia and Rhina’s wry wisdom could not be greater."
I'll grant you "shrill" for Plath, but not for Sexton. Sexton, people forget (as they do Picasso), began as a formalist. Rhina surely knows this, and if she doesn't she can catch the New England Poetry Club's Sexton program the first Monday of March at the Cambridge Public Library, where I and Lois Ames (or Fred Marchant) will explore what a great technician Sexton was.
This is, of course, to take nothing from Rhina's skills. I recall encountering her work in a little mag called AMELIA and wondering why she wasn't publishing in KENYON REVIEW or a similar. She's terrific. I'm amazed, however, at "contempory," because I'm ten years younger than Sexton would have been, and I'm an old fart.
Shameless O'Clawson
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