This belated American debut, however, came about at a not unpropitious time for Disch, corresponding, as it did, with the emergence in the United States of the New Formalism, a group with whom his witty, colloquial, formal verse bore a strong affinity.
Yes, Let's was reviewed in the Winter 1990 special issue of the Scottish American journal
Verse, edited by Robert McPhillips, devoted to "The New Formalism in American Poetry"; and a substantial selection from his poetry was included in the first anthology of poetry devoted to New Formalism,
Rebel Angels: 25 Poets of the New Formalism (1996), edited by Mark Jarman and David Mason. With R. S. Gwynn and Charles Martin, Disch joined the forefront of the satirical wing of the New Formalist school.
Thomas Michael Disch was born in Des Moines, Iowa, on 2 February 1940 to Felix and Helen Gilbertson Disch and grew up in St. Paul and rural Minnesota. His father was a traveling salesman; his mother grew up on a farm in southern Minnesota, and Disch divided his childhood between stints living in the Twin Cities, in smaller Minnesota towns, and, for a brief, idyllic period, on the family farm.
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