I always relish Logan's "acidulous rhetoric" when he's trashing poets like Graham whom I despise. From the little I've seen of his own work, I regard him as a middling poet, not really worthy to shine the shoes of a Davis, a Wilbur or Hecht. And I wonder to what degree he is motivated by envy. On his latest book, by way of blurb, he quotes Robert McDowell: "The most hated man in American poetry." Now that's a guy with a hell of a chip on his shoulder. Yet he is very clever, and in person he is perfectly affable. He maintains that the non-accomplishment of the New Formalists is ascribable to our learning meter and rhyme too late in life to gain any real facility. That may be true of some of us, but others (like Steele, Gwynn, yours truly, Davis, etc.) never wasted a minute on free verse and were writing formally in our teens. I believe it probably is true of Logan, who like me, studied with Strand and Howard at Yale around 1970, and probably didn't turn to form until he was in his twenties, perhaps at Iowa. To his credit he is fiercely loyal to Donald Justice.
|
Threaded Mode
