Great Regulars: The poems in Heart's Needle--the first

of more than 30 volumes of poetry and translations published by Snodgrass in his lifetime--grew out of the poet's pain at losing custody of his young daughter, Cynthia, in the wake of a bitter divorce from his first wife. The lengthy title poem was addressed directly to Cynthia; the unadorned simplicity of stanzas such as "Winter again and it is snowing;/Although you are still three,/You are already growing/Strange to me" led to startled praise from a reading public raised on the anti-biographical doctrines of New Criticism.

from Sarah Crown: The Guardian: 'Father of confessional poetry' WD Snodgrass dies, aged 83

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