SOURCE: "Dickey's 'The Firebombing,'" in The Explicator, Vol. 54, No. 2, Winter, 1996, pp. 110-13.

[In the following review, Rich asserts that Dickey's poem "The Firebombing" "can be shown to implicate the reader in the blame for the firebombing of Japan during World War II."]

Jacques-Louis David originally displayed his painting The Sabines facing a cartouched oval mirror. When patrons turned their backs to the painting to look into the mirror, they saw themselves flattened two-dimensionally into the midst of the battle of the Sabines against the Romans—either imprinted over the central figure of the woman with arms outstretched as if on a crucifix, or standing under her arms, as if under protective wings. With a slight shift, the viewer became imprinted over the figure of the naked invading Roman who has his back to us, a round shield covering him. David's unusual orchestration made a political statement at...