[New-Poetry] Orr on Harvey

[jforjames at aol.com]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/17/books/review/Orr2-t.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

The good news, however, is that America’s younger poets are generating more than their share of our country’s best writing. At 34, Matthea Harvey is a case in point. She is in many ways a typical American poet in early career: She teaches workshops, helps edit a journal, keeps a busy reading schedule, pops up at artists’ colonies, publishes widely and has had to learn the basic steps of the pobiz hustle (her Web site is polished, her Wikipedia entry primed for expansion). And Harvey’s technique is a variation on the trendiest contemporary style, which relies heavily on disconnected phrases, abrupt syntactical shifts, attention-begging titles (“The Gem Is on Page Sixty-Four”), quirky diction (“orangery,” “aigrettes”), flickering italics, oddball openings (“The scent of pig is faint tonight”) and a tone ranging from daffy to plangent —
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/pipermail/new-poetry/attachments/20080306/c054707f/attachment.html