SOURCE: "The Sincere, the Mythic, the Playful: Forms of Voice in Current Poetry," in The Georgia Review, Vol. 34, No. 1, Spring, 1980, pp. 202-04.

In the following review, Stitt compares 7 Years from Somewhere with Ashes, contending Ashes is a more powerful and imaginative work.

Because lyric poetry is spoken in a direct and seemingly intimate voice, it is by its very nature a personal form of utterance. Such recent movements as confessionalism have sometimes led us to believe that lyric poetry, being personal, is also inherently sincere. In the sense that the poet means what he or she says, of course, poetry (except for the ostensibly ironic) is generally sincere. But in the sense that the poet is writing about his or her own life, feelings, and thoughts, poetry is never necessarily sincere. In one way or another—whether it appears only in the form or also in the content...