Lanier fought for the Confederacy in various battles including Chancellorsville, captained a blockade-runner, was captured and was then imprisoned at Point Lookout, where he contracted tuberculosis. The life appropriated is that of Sidney Lanier (1842-1881), poet, novelist, musician and critic. The following could stand as a description of the method: “the way a lie that’s passed from ear to ear/ might turn into the truth along the way.” The pleasures obtained are similar to those enjoyed by the participants at a costume ball. Doctorow and Peter Ackroyd, Hudgins appropriates the life of a historical figure for the creation of a sensibility of his own devising. Using a method currently favored by such writers of fiction as E. The poet tells as best he can, and the reader listens, asking only, “And then? And then?” “After the Lost War” by Andrew Hudgins, already the author of a fine first book of poems, is an excellent case in point. The narrative poem provides the simplest ground on which poet and reader can meet there they are free of the relentless intrusions of critical theorists.
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