Dwight Garner's appreciation of James Dickey's Deliverance and of his poetry should launch a long-awaited reexamination of his work:
"Dickey’s moral awareness infuses this book with grainy life; guilt and blame are not easily assigned. The book presents a quagmire none of its characters escape. In 2010, it’s lonely work looking for its serious successors."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/25/books/25dickey.html
It's long enough ago that I cannot remember if I discovered 'Deliverance' through your father's poetry or his poetry through the novel. What I am trying to recall is an essay (poem?) published in one of the major popular publications around the time of Vietnam. In it, he wrote about getting a haircut in a barbershop in South Carolina, one where he asked for only a trim of his rather long hair, and thereby earned several jibes from the other patrons. The conclusion had him donning a jacket with the eagle-and-banner motif embroidered on the back. And the banner carried the word "Poetry."
ReplyDeleteAll the best. I thought the TIMES piece was superb.
Gary www.garypresley.com
Gary - You're thinking of a poem, in fact: "False Youth Autumn Clothes of the Age." Part of it is available on the Google books version of "The Whole Motion." For the rest, I guess you'll have to pick up a copy of the print version, although we are working to have the publishers make it available on Kindle.
ReplyDeletehttp://books.google.fr/books?id=_74A2UW8C_UC&lpg=PP1&dq=%22goodbye%20to%20serpents%22&pg=PA392#v=onepage&q=%22goodbye%20to%20serpents%22&f=false