An Aesthetic Feast

A review of An Aesthetic Education and Other Stories (Green Altar Books, 2019) by Catharine Savage Brosman

One of the most felicitous occurrences in literature is when a first-rate poet turns his or her talents to the writing of short fiction.  Among those who have done so, turning out first-rate stories, have been William Carlos Williams, Dylan Thomas, Elizabeth Bishop, and Charles Causley.  (I am writing now of authors who specialize mainly in poetry and have never attempted, or, at least, never published a full-length novel; thus protean talents such as Robert Penn Warren, Wendell Berry, Fred Chappell, James Still, and Jesse Stuart, et al. do not make the list.)  Given the affinities between poetry and the short story, the compression of language, the precision of theme, the more intense focus on specific, telling detail, it seems perfectly natural that a poet would undertake work in this genre.