Word: casey
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...Casey at no time tells the reader what to think, but the obvious honesty of his account and its deceptive simplicity make his points more deftly and forcefully than...
...Michael Casey, the winner of the 1972 Yale Younger Poets Award, is perhaps the first American poet to deal successfully with the Vietnam War; he is the first to capture with candor, humor, freshness of insight, a careful eye for detail, and an exceptionally attentive ear for language the thoroughly human fabric of a war from which most of us are physically and, too often, emotionally far removed. A former base guard and highway patrolman in Vietnam, Casey witnessed little of the action from which heroic yarns are spun. Rather, he saw in combat and heard expressed the neuroses...
Besides the general virtues of his attitude as a poet. Casey exhibits three distinctive assets throughout his work: an abundance of impression mixed with a frugality of expression, an uncanny ability to recreate atmosphere through the faithful reproduction of speech, and a willingness to avoid taking himself in his role as an observer too seriously. The last is particularly important because Casey's writing comes closer to reportage than to philosophy. His tone is only occasionally reflective, and he is careful not to aggrandize his subject by allowing his own role to loom too large...
...KNOWLEDGE" is a good example of how, with a brief but pointedly accurate portrayal of soldiers' language, Casey transmits the fears and pretensions of which much of military life is made...
...enthusiastic and perceptive introduction to the book, Stanley Kunitz properly recommends that the poems be read through all in a single sitting. The growth of Casey's insights, one upon the other, the recurring juxtaposition of human comedy and absurdist tragedy, and the escalating force of Casey's convincing verse can best be appreciated when he work is taken in as a whole. Amidst what would seem to be his verbatim transcription of his portion of the war, the poet's moments of reflection are neither disruptive nor pompous, but as frugal, honest and ironic as his descriptive poetry. Somewhat...