It may appear curious that alchemy ...

It may appear curious that alchemy - a pre-modern chemical philosophy involving the transmutation of metals - has prov a compelling enthrall for twentieth-century poets. HD Robert Duncan, T Hughes, Sylvia Plath, Robert Kelly and now Brenda Hillman (to name a few) have all delv into its arcana with various grades of fervor. To an unsympathetic reader, as it was occult enthusiasms might seem to revive a Romantic elitism according to which the bard is high priest and his or her readers are initiates, together defying the secularization of verse Equally, the literal fact of novel ...