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PUBLICATIONS
To call one’s first (young) collection Swansongs implies a strong sense of irony. To see one’s work hailed as “better” than both Ted Hughes and
Sylvia Plath demands a resistance to
flattery. Let’s hope Sue Lenier has both, since this is a remarkable book
and her poetic assurance is notable. She can mesh the classical with the modern (“Cassandra”) in a hard-
edged lyric mode which at its best lifts and swoops the verse in a vivid, image-rich rhythm. This is
particu- larly true of her love sonnets, which are impressive in their tightness. She
rings many changes on conventional
lyric-nature imagery, and her facility is sometimes mechanical – sliding into a Tennysonian hypnosis. But
there is no doubt that she is an exciting and unconventional (to us) poet.
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