A House of Gathering

Book excerpt: May Sarton has been writing and publishing poetry for over sixty years. A House of Gathering gives her poetry long-overdue critical attention and discusses Sarton's place among modern and contemporary world authors. As working poets, the contributors offer knowledgeable discussions of Sarton's craft. The essays cover a broad range of topics, from Pastan's memoirs of Sarton as her teacher at Radcliffe in the 1950s, to Charlotte Mandel's close scrutiny of Sarton's poetic forms in her earliest collections, to Bobby Caudle Rogers's consideration of the poetic sequence as a form in contemporary American poetry, to Keith Norris's reading of Sarton as a postmodernist. William Stafford's essay on Sarton's A Private Mythology offers eloquent testimony as to the poet's "breakthrough" in mid-career. In addition, A House of Gathering includes an original interview with May Sarton; a recent poem, "Friendship and Illness"; working drafts for "Old Lovers at the Ballet"; a letter from Sarton to H.D.; and several original photographs. These essays will appeal to readers interested in poetry and literature in general, in women's studies, and in May Sarton.