Archaic Figure: Poems

by Amy Clampitt

The author offers a collection of poems about such topics as George Eliot, Margaret Fuller, figures in Greek mythology, and travelers on a rickety train trip

Genres: Poetry

113 pages, Paperback

First published March 12, 1987

About the author

Amy Clampitt was brought up in New Providence, Iowa. She wrote poetry in high school, but then ceased and focused her energies on writing fiction instead. She graduated from Grinnell College, and from that time on lived mainly in New York City.

To support herself, she worked as a secretary at the Oxford University Press, a reference librarian at the Audubon Society, and a freelance editor. Not until the mid-1960s, when she was in her forties, did she return to writing poetry. Her first poem was published by The New Yorker in 1978. In 1983, at the age of sixty-three, she published her first full-length collection, The Kingfisher.

Clampitt was the recipient of a 1982 Guggenheim Fellowship, a MacArthur Fellowship (1992), and she was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Poets. She died of cancer in September 1994.

Reviews

[Stephanie]

Amy Clampitt meets Greek myth? Count me in! My favorite among the ones I read was "Ano Prinios."
The cover of the 1987 edition I found is by Chip Kidd; I'm surprised Goodreads doesn't currently have an image of it.

[Mills College Library]

811.54 C586a 1987

[Humphrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not sure if this collection is better than What the Light Was Like; I marked as many strong poems in each, but I think this collection never lulls in the way that the previous briefly did. Mythic subjects suit Clampitt well, as clear from the very first, title poem; my other favorites in this vein were "Thermopylae," "seriphos unvisited," and "Perseus airborne." Another section turns to authorial biography much like her previous Keats section. As with the Keats, I found these poems all interesting but often less so in themselves than their subjects; Margaret Fuller was the best. The section ends with a long "anatomy of a migraine," which has some strong moments but didn't come together as a whole. The best two pieces come in the final section: the incredible links of "Venice revisited" and the symphonic affirmational conclusion "the hermit thrush."

[scarlettraces · Rating 4 out of 5]

I remember being dazzled by the Keats sequence in What the Light was Like. Nothing dinned me on the head as much in this collection... I've read a lot of poetry since then but also I might need to go back and put some more mental effort in.

[Ken White · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Babel Aboard the Hellas International Express”

[Harj D · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poems telling many tales of women from the past, including those from Greek mythology. This is definitely what I would consider an intelligent read and therefore wouldn't appeal to most, but given the chance, the stories conveyed in this collection are richly written, making you feel like you've travelled in a time machine, coming face to face with each of the protagonists mentioned. A lovely read.