
Early Autumn by Geoffrey O'Brien
The idea that elegy is the essence of poetry is an old one, and has always seemed to me worth resisting. This protest is probably the privilege of youth—and, if I'm honest, probably the privilege of privilege—but I prefer to think of it as an insistence that art can be larger than life, and life larger than loss.
I can't say that Geoffrey O'Brien's Early Autumn quite changed my mind on the question, but this book of elegant, often moving poems certainly forced reconsideration.O'Brien is the editor-in-chief of the Library of America and an accomplished cultural historian who's lent his brisk,