Dec 21, 2009

Drought Year | Critical Overview

Few critics appear to have written about “Drought Year,” the exception being Richard Ellmann and Robert O’Clair who selected the poem for The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry (1988). Ellmann and O’Clair wrote, “The dingoes’ cry in ‘Drought Year’ reminds us of the unseen world that remains a part of us.” Is what Ellmann and O’Clair mean by “unseen world,” natural impulse? It is difficult to know since “unseen world” is about as cryptic as the “dingoes’ cry.”

With so little criticism written on “Drought Year,” it helps to examine the...