Clampitt, Amy - J. D. McCIatchy (review date 1983)

J. D. McCIatchy (review date 1983)

SOURCE: "Short Reviews," in Poetry, Vol. 143, No. 3, December, 1983, pp. 163-67.

[In this brief review of The Kingfisher, McCIatchy comments on Clampitt's similarities to Marianne Moore, especially in their use of language, their exuberance, and their moralism.]

"It is a privilege to see so / much confusion," said Marianne Moore. By "confusion" she meant the world's own welter, its facts, artifacts, curios, and contradiction. And by "privilege" she meant their moral ordering. Amy Clampitt is a poet in the mold of Moore. For several years now I have been excitedly following Clampitt's poems as they appeared in magazines. As Leigh Hunt said of Congreve, they were "full as an egg of some kind of wit or sense in almost every sentence." Some of the poems—"Times Square Water Music," "Exmoor," "Good Friday," and "Marginal Employment" come back to mind—even sounded like Moore. But it was not that...

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