Dragaera

Steve's Weblog

Mon Jul 12 15:07:56 PDT 2004

--- 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