Like most American poets, I am provoked to a confession. I don't like Dickinson. I don't like Whitman. I don't like Hart Crane. I'm not even (horrors!) enthused about E.A. Robinson. You really have to get to Frost, Millay and Parker before I get excited about American poetry. I consider myself very parochially American thematically, but for style give me Shakespeare, Milton, Pope, Swift, Byron, Auden and Larkin. OK, so shoot me now.
Specifically with regard to Dickinson, I see occasional charm in the well-turned off-kilter line or even stanza, but
I see very few of these poems standing on their own as interesting works of art despite their brevity. Being brief, cryptic and mysterious about autobiography has created a largely empty vessel in which contemporary critics see their own reflections, which only augurs for six more weeks of winter.
Just one person's opinion,
Mike
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