Treasures in the Garden

The Walled Garden: Poems by Andrew Thornton-Norris. CreateSpace, 2011, 2015. Paper, 74 pages, $7. Few things have frustrated supporters of traditionalist or conservative aesthetics than the state of contemporary poetry. It seems that not a year goes by with at least...

Wilmer Mills: The Poet as Maker

An introduction to and appreciation of the work of the modern agrarian poet Wilmer Mills (1968–2011). By Steven Knepper B. H. Fairchild says it is good for poets to “come from people who make things.” Poets from a crafting background have rich subject matter for...

Thirteen Ways of Looking at Wallace Stevens

The Whole Harmonium: The Life of Wallace Stevens by Paul Mariani Simon & Schuster, 2016. Hardcover, 483 pages, $30. When Wallace Stevens was seventy-two, he received the Robert Frost Gold Medal from the Poetry Society of America. In his remarks, he gave an ethical...

Roy Campbell: A Poet for Our Time?

Matthew M. Robare This coming April will see the fiftieth anniversary of the death of one of the twentieth century’s greatest poets, but one who has been unfairly purged from the history of English letters. Roy Campbell died in a car crash in Portugal on Saint...

Enlarging Emily Dickinson

A Loaded Gun: Emily Dickinson for the 21st Century by Jerome Charyn. Bellevue Literary Press, 2016. Paperback, 255 pages, $20. The first part of Jerome Charyn’s title alludes to one of Emily Dickinson’s most enigmatic and powerful poems, which begins, “My Life had...