Kraus's book of poems, Generation, was published by Alice James Books in 1997; individual poems have appeared in The Georgia Review, Tri-Quarterly, and elsewhere. She teaches creative writing, literature, and other courses at Queens College, CUNY (Flushing, NY). In this essay, Kraus suggests that "The Weight of Sweetness" relies on a tone of restraint and unusual narrative development to render emotional complexity.
"The Weight of Sweetness" is from Lee's Rose, an elegaic book largely about an Asian-American son's relationship with his father and loss of that father. The power of "The Weight of Sweetness" lies in its formal grace: the poem's control of pacing and careful development allow its delicate treatment of a father-son relationship to emerge fully and without sentimentality. The poet structures this poem, surprisingly, by moving from the abstract to the concrete—"surprisingly" because.....
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