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Judging a school by its style

Originally Published: June 02, 2010

The Constant Critic (in this case, Christina Mengert) talks about matching up poetic style with poetic schools in her review of The Smaller Half by Marc Rahe:

If, for example, I was reading a poem with an air of classical control, and gentility of expression, I might attribute it to the University of Virginia. If formally ambitious and influenced by L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E, I might think Brown University or Buffalo; if the poem was slightly narrative, with the occasionally surreal image twisting our sense of time and place; if it employed explosive, Donne-like openings followed by short, well-crafted lines, and an ending that lifts off the page as the poem gently but firmly settles into heavy silence, I might suspect the poet as a graduate of the Iowa Workshop . . .