This awesome number of letters sheds gentle on probably the most very important postwar American poets and on an artistic woman's existence from the Fifties onward. Amy Clampitt used to be an American unique, a literary girl from a Quaker family members in rural Iowa who got here to ny after university and lived in new york for nearly 40 years sooner than she came upon good fortune (or sooner than it came across her) on the age of sixty three with the e-book of The Kingfisher. Her letters from 1950 until eventually her demise in 1994 are a sworn statement to her fiercely self sufficient spirit and her quest for varied forms of truth-religious, non secular, political, and artistic.

Written in transparent, limpid prose, Clampitt's letters remove darkness from the behavior of mind's eye she could later use to such influence in her poetry. She bargains, with wit and intelligence, an intimate and private portrait of existence as an self reliant lady lately arrived in ny urban. She recounts her fight to discover a spot for herself on the planet of literature in addition to the buzz of residing in new york. In different letters she describes a non secular conversion (and then a gentle non secular disillusionment) and her paintings as a political activist. Clampitt additionally unearths her passionate curiosity in and fascination with the area round her. She conveys her relish quite a few daily reviews and points of interest, reporting on journeys to Europe, the books she has learn, and her walks in nature.

After suffering as a novelist, Clampitt grew to become to poetry in her fifties and used to be finally released within the New Yorker. within the final decade of her lifestyles she gave the look of a meteor at the nationwide literary scene, lionized and commemorated. In letters to Helen Vendler, Mary Jo Salter, and others, she discusses her poetry in addition to her shock at her newfound luck and the lengthy late delight she evidently felt, besides gratitude, for her recognition.