from the Wikipedia article about Joe BoltonBolton's work is regional in that the southern locales of the poems, his upbringing and education in Kentucky, and its rather southern gothic quality add a Faulkneresque quality that is absolutely authentic.
Bolton's long-lasting value, however, is not in his free-verse or regional influences, but rather, a quality that was fresh in his work and the by-product of his times, the 1980s. This "certain mixed-attitude toward life," as one critic described it, may be described as post-modern, or even late-Imperial American. If Bolton were writing in New York City, he might have been marked as an all-American poet, but Bolton extrapolated from the American South, not Whitmanic Brooklyn. Bolton was writing about the south, but really, America, and doing it with a vision more akin to punk-rock, sub-pop, and indie-rock than high-academia.
Perhaps this commentator has a point, but I'm not sure. Do those of us who grew up in the 80s uniquely possess a "mixed-attitude toward life"? I always kind of thought Shakespeare had one too.
2 comments:
I bet that the author of that article grew up and experienced his own first mixed attitudes about life in the 80's. It probably seemed novel at the time.
So, I am glad to read these last posts. I did miss you. I love your description of going to your fifteen year old's school.I now want to read Joe Bolton and I don't have time or inclination to read much of anything these days except MW biographies and commentaries and these I don't really want to read. Little mini delights -- these entries. Maybe the start of The Collected Essays.
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