Predecessors, Et Cetera

Predecessors, Et Cetera collects Amy Clampitts reflections on her predecessors (the poets Donne, Wordsworth, Dickinson, Frost, Eliot, and Marianne Moore as well as the novelists Henry James and Edith Wharton) and her contemporaries (including James Merrill, Anthony Hecht, Howard Moss, Thomas McGrath, John Berryman, Stevie Smith, and Seamus Heaney) and reveals the intricate connections inherent in their art. Other essays include Purloined Sincerity, which examines the fate of the personal letter in these days of electronic communication, and The Long, Long Wait, which looks at the epistles of St. Paul to the Thessalonians. Along the way she offers ruminations on the poets craft, the vagaries of reputation, and the perennial question of what makes a poet or any writer tick.