Top 6 - Adrienne Rich

So, I treated myself to a copy of The Fact of a Doorframe, Selected Poems 1950-2001, to belatedly put Adrienne Rich among those poets I can at least say something about.

One of those maxims or tenets that one can usually roll out quite lazily in the knowledge that it's usually true is that the best poets and artists develop from good beginnings to equally good or better mature work. Adrienne Rich certainly developed but all the poems I liked best in this book were in the first few pages, from the 1950's, and a couple from the 60's.

This is not to say that she 'lost it' or deteriorated, just that for me, the style of the earliest poems, somewhat more formal but unsentimental, was more successful than later, longer, more freely written pieces. But it's a fine book, all of it, and I am better late than never among her admirers.

Storm Warnings, At a Bach Concert, Ideal Landscape, Living in Sin, For a Russian Poet and Orion are six that I picked out, the first three especially.

Another poet who does that for me is Ted Hughes. He never did quite regain the initial impetus for me.

I expect at least some of that is heresy and that's one reason why the facility for others to place comments on this website is disabled.