Ellen Bryant Voigt – The Ruthless Lyric (January 1992)

Ellen Bryant Voigt focuses on the dangers of convention, the benefits and limitations of influence, and a strategy for writing from, if not about, personal experience. Wary of narrowness within the lyric mode as well as the post-confessional rise of discursive structures, Voigt draws upon Philip Larkin as a case study for finding an alternative to discursiveness within the lyric point of view.