Andrew, I remember a review in which the male reviewer (whose name I have forgotten) criticized Alicia Stallings' poems for having no philosophy. I was shocked that he could not see that there is a humane, thoughtful, consistent world-view underpinning her work and that that is a philosophy, too, one that fits well with what poetry is trying to do. Too often the writers, usually male, who complain that there is no philosophy in a particular poet's work are looking for some kind of treatise on "the big issues" and not a poem at all. The great poems are a coming to terms with life in all of its complexity. Sometimes that coming to terms is expressed in ideas; sometimes the ideas are embodied in an experience or the poet's complicated response to it.
Susan
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