ABSTRACT
James Dickey's god of poetry is more Dionysus than Apollo. But that is a truism, that is not a sufficient truth, and his releasing is also controlling. Though he opened new fields for poetry, he did this partly to subdue them, breaking untilled ground to the plough. Lesser poets are irrational, but he is himself and superior to easy generalization. He liked poems about animals, the wilder the better. Doomed to extinction, the wolverine gnaws its prey and looks straight at eternity, dimly aware of being the last of its kind. Writing about writers, especially poets, one tends to straighten them out, a mistake. One must not discover too much order in Dickey, who had his crazy side, like Ancient Pistol when he sang of Africa and golden joys. The wildness he commends to people is partly itself, hair-raising when it gets into the music.
