Ashberry's prodigious output should also be studied. The fate of Anne Sexton should be tacked into the heads of every artist pigeonholed as making one sort of emotional music, be it happy or sad or angry. Had she been always true to her feelings, she might not have killed herself, and her later books might have rung more true. It's hard to write about music's most popular topic in a fresh yet honest way, but this chick does it well, particularly in Diving Into the Wreck . Individuals like Mark Robinson and Lawrence Heyward likewise put their obsessions on the table, but it's one thing to hear a song about good sneakers.
Breasts are great stuff, and any song without mention of em sags.
Incidentally, she also kept her rhyme schemes simple, which helps when you're making complex time changes. She had horses who were bodies of sand. She had horses who were maps drawn of blood. A recent book by Mark Strand, composed of lists, also shows the beauty of repetition and the power of compact, physical metaphor. Her poetry's okay, but the picture adorning the back of her books marks her importance.