Donald Justice Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Thom Gunn

Critical Essay by Thom Gunn

There are a few obvious misfires in [The Summer Anniversaries] (the only disastrous one being the final poem, which is really too close to Auden to be taken seriously), but otherwise it is a most accomplished collection. There is a great deal to be thankful for in such [a poet as] Donald Justice. [His very modesty is part of his virtue. He is] humble before the tangible world, attempting to understand it at the same time as [he reproduces] it. It is a brave humility, too, much braver than the desire to do away with the rules of common sense and perception so that the idiosyncrasies of one's personality may rule the page, much braver than the arrogant cultivation of an individual voice at the expense of everything else….

Mr. Justice is a gentle poet, and in his best poems the gentleness has its own firm clear strength, but sometimes...
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