In Twenty Questions, one of America's finest poet-critics leads readers
into the mysteries of poetry: how it draws on our lives, and how it
leads us back into them. In a series of linked essays progressing from
the autobiographical to the critical - and closing with a remarkable
translation of Horace's Ars Poetica unavailable elsewhere - J. D.
McClatchy's latest book offers an intimate and illuminating look into
the poetic mind. McClatchy begins with a portrait of his development as
a poet, and provides vibrant details about some of those who helped
shape his sensibility - from Anne Sexton in her final days, to Harold
Bloom, his enigmatic teacher at Yale, to James Merrill, a wise and witty
mentor. All of these glimpses into McClatchy's personal history enhance
our understanding of a coming of age from ingenuous reader to
accomplished poet-critic. Later sections range through poetry past and
present - from Emily Dickinson to Seamus Heaney and W. S. Merwin - with
incisive criticism generously interspersed with vivid anecdotes about
McClatchy's encounters with other poets' lives and work. A critical
unpacking of Alexander Pope's "Epistle to Miss Blount, " for instance,
is interwoven with a compassionate psychological portrait of a brilliant
poet plagued by both romantic longings and debilitating physical
deformities. There are surprising takes on the literary imagination as
well: a look at Elizabeth Bishop through her letters, and a tribute to
the Broadway lyrics of Stephen Sondheim.
