(no subject)
Despite crossing it with Ozymandias, 2000 Illustrations' debt to Sunday Morning is kind of alarming. There's a bit or two that seem like they might be tributes to Stevens (the burnoose line, the sepulcher one), but to be taking so much, and of the main, not incidentals - surely you can't do that consciously, can't proceed with that weighing on you. Though perhaps she suppressed that particular poem while acknowledging others? I dunno, but I do know this: I'm reading her more closely than I've ever read anything, and it's all making me more and more sure Bloom is right about how writing works. Which I was already sure of, but Jesus.
Yes, it's doing all sorts of things he didn't, Bishop's travels are a master trope letting in nuances Stevens' seasons don't, there's some "Bible is an antique volume written by faded men" gender provocation at work, she's working in a lot more specifics about what causes religion, what parallels it, what it's after and why, she's more compressed, more closely readable even than him, every damn line is beautiful in a new and lasting way and I'll love it forever etc.
It isn't Sunday Morning.
But when all is said and done it's Sunday Morning.
Yes, it's doing all sorts of things he didn't, Bishop's travels are a master trope letting in nuances Stevens' seasons don't, there's some "Bible is an antique volume written by faded men" gender provocation at work, she's working in a lot more specifics about what causes religion, what parallels it, what it's after and why, she's more compressed, more closely readable even than him, every damn line is beautiful in a new and lasting way and I'll love it forever etc.
It isn't Sunday Morning.
But when all is said and done it's Sunday Morning.