Words On Poetry: 14-Year Hiatus Ends with Poems of Confession, Autobiography

Summary

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Tess Gallagher's first book of poetry in 14 years, Dear Ghosts (Graywolf Press, 2006), presents some ambiguity for readers in terms of the issues of autobiography, confession and narrative in lyric poetry.

On the one hand, Gallagher's story is well-known because it is one she has told herself in prose and poetry. The widow of writer Raymond Carver, she has eulogized and elegized him extensively. In a poem about a discussion with a Japanese friend who is also a widow, Gallagher writes:

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Words On Poetry: 14-Year Hiatus Ends with Poems of Confession, Autobiography

After a while we turn to talk

of love so perfected when the husband dies

it isolates.

And the poem Sixteenth Anniversary continues in the vein of Gall...

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