Bly, Robert - Charles Molesworth (review date 1978)

Charles Molesworth (review date 1978)

SOURCE: Molesworth, Charles. Review of This Body Is Made of Camphor and Gopherwood, by Robert Bly. Georgia Review 32 (fall 1978): 683-88.

[In the following review, Molesworth favorably compares the prose-poems of Bly's This Body Is Made of Camphor and Gopherwood with those of the poet's earlier collection, The Morning Glory.]

Robert Bly's latest book [This Body Is Made of Camphor and Gopherwood] extends his vision beyond the ranges established in the prose-poems of The Morning Glory (1975). These newer poems are less thoroughly descriptive than those of the earlier volume, and also more directly ecstatic. As does Rilke, Bly sees the world from “the other side of things.” But in place of Rilke's angels Bly uses a body-centered mysticism, drawn from Jacob Boehme and others, to illumine the dark passages of consciousness. Bly's ecstasy often finds him outside the body,...

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