SOURCE: "Amy Clampitt: The Mirroring Marryings," in White paper on Contemporary American Poetry, Columbia University Press, 1989, pp. 311-28.

In the excerpt below, McClatchy explores Clampitt's poetic voice, especially her use of literary allusions and the themes of death and completion.

When Amy Clampitt's The Kingfisher was published in 1983, reactions were as extravagant as the texture of the poems themselves. Those reactions came in two waves. The praise prompted a success; the success prompted attacks. About The Kingfisher and the books she has written since, opinions have been sharply divided: enthusiasts applaud their unfashionably rich rhetoric, their allusiveness and virtuosity, while detractors dismiss them as overstuffed and regressive. Because the two sides have been so insistent, their conflicting claims signal perhaps the most unusual debut in recent literary history. But because this is an old debate about American poetry, its resumption in this case was not a surprise. The...