Robert Bly Critical Essay | Critical Review by Ralph J. Mills Jr.

Critical Review by Ralph J. Mills Jr.

SOURCE: Mills, Ralph, J., Jr. “Four Voices in Recent American Poetry.” Christian Scholar 46, no. 4 (winter 1963): 324-45.

In the following excerpted review of Silence in the Snowy Fields, Mills comments on the aim and style of Bly's poetry, seeing the work as a collection of purified and “concentrated understatement” allied to the world of nature rather than that of ideas.

A volume of poems by Robert Bly has long been awaited, and Silence in the Snowy Fields proves that the waiting has not gone unrewarded. Mr. Bly, both as an editor of his journal The Sixties (formerly The Fifties) and as a practicing poet, has made a great effort to lead contemporary American verse away from its current tendencies and preoccupations; he wishes to introduce fresh influences into it. If I understand correctly what I have seen of his editorial and critical views, he aims at a purification...
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