--- Ken Koester <kkoester at email.ers.usda.gov> wrote: > > > Jerry Friedman wrote: > > >Department of Bizarrerie: The poet John Logan, in one of the > >_Naked Poetry_ anthologies (iirc), said that so many poets die > >or go crazy or stop writing poetry around the age of 35 because > >in their "body of work" they're symbolically recreating the body > >of their parent of the opposite sex, and halfway through their > >lives they're halfway done with the body, which means they've > >gotten to a part they can't face. > > > >I suppose part of this may have been true of Sylvia Plath, > >anyway. > > > > > > > OTOH, Yeats would be remembered as a minor, second rate poet had he died > > before > turning 40; all of his best work post-dates that, & even in his dotage, > > so to speak, he > was still turning out masterworks, "The Circus Animals' Desertion", for > example. Right. I forgot to mention the other thing that could happen in Logan's theory--the quality of the poet's work could change considerably, sometimes even for the better. Jerry Friedman went into a hazel wood... __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com