Fidelities of Summer. "Peripheral Light: Selected and New Poems" by John Kinsella [review]

Abstract

I have no idea whether Kinsella knows the poetry of the American Ben Belitt, who died as an old man in August this year. Belitt’s work is an acquired, and a minority, taste, but it happens to be much to my liking. Commentary on his poetry has sooner or later to reckon with its combination of the opulent, the armoured and the violent — with its drastic character. Kinsella’s work strikes me as being, frequently, similarly drastic.