THE GREAT POETS: OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

Fashions change in poetry just as they do in music or clothes. Once, Oliver Wendell Holmes was all the rage, and counted Poe and Lincoln among his admirers. Now, except perhaps for "Old Ironsides" and "The Chambered Nautilus," he is remembered mostly as the father of the Supreme Court justice. Often witty, rarely personal, Holmes's poetry has passed into the realm of the specialist and historian. Yet in Peter Marinker's sensitive readings, the many charms of these poems emerge. Marinker lets the meter and rhyme stand on their own, speaking in sentences rather than forcing the lines and respecting the sentiment without falling into sentimentality. D.M.H. © AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine [Published: SEPTEMBER 2009]