American Gothic.

The following review has just appeared in the Valparaiso Poetry Review:

*

*

*
~GILBERT [Wesley] PURDY~

TED KOOSER: DELIGHTS & SHADOWS

Ted Kooser has been compared to Robert Frost for just this reason: he writes about a regional landscape and a way of life that is passing away. He writes about it after a fashion that seems particularly suited to his subject. The short poems of this volume, and the lack of dialogue, suggest a laconic people. The details are common but also somehow characteristic of the small, midwestern farming town.

In the title essay of Guy Davenport's book The Geography of the Imagination the author considers Grant Wood's painting American Gothic. The location was Eldon, Iowa. The artist's sister and dentist were the models for the husband (with his famous pitchfork) and wife.... [cont'd]

*

*

*

Source: Valparaiso Poetry Review.