I reserved Understanding the Black Mountain Poets when we were researching poets for Michelle to study, and hopefully fall in love with. Three problems with this book. First, it’s an inter-library loan and since it’s not easy (and sometimes not possible) to renew these, I always feel “rushed”. This is not a book you can rush through, unless you really know the “big 3” Black Mountain Poets. And there you have problems 2 and 3. This is not a book you can rush through. It’s not a biography. It was dry, dry, dry. It did put me to sleep once, and that never happens. And, I’m not a huge fan of Olsen, Duncan and Creeley. I like some of their work well enough, but I am not a huge fan. And I don’t know the last time I read one of their poems, much less a lot of their poems.
So, this was a tough book. It was interesting. But tough.
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