Successful Experiment

It would seem a priori that sonnets by a poetic necessity inherent in their metrical form must be unities of thought and feeling, independent of one another, except, of course, when fifteen sonnets constitute a Voloshinian cycle. But Blunt’s Esther is an excellent narrative poem, and now Mr. Keyes uses sonnets as stanzas in which he paraphrases and interprets the thought of Thoreau. The experiment is singularly successful. This is one of the most pleasing poems written in America in recent decades. R.P.O.

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It would seem a priori that sonnets by a poetic necessity inherent in their metrical form must be unities of thought and feeling, independent of one another, except, of course, when fifteen sonnets constitute a Voloshinian cycle. But Blunt’s Esther is an excellent narrative poem, and now Mr. Keyes uses sonnets as stanzas in which he paraphrases and interprets the thought of Thoreau. The experiment is singularly successful. This is one of the most pleasing poems written in America in recent decades. R.P.O.

To order any book reviewed in this book section, write: