Heather McHugh: Matters of Letters (January 2008)

It is generally presumed that a metaphorical impulse lies at the heart of the poetic, Heather McHugh notes.  In this lecture, she concentrates instead on what she calls the “literary literal,” and with “myopic glee and lapidary precision” examines the shapes and patterns of letters and text in Matthea Harvey’s “Everything Must Go,” Alan Dugan’s “Poem,” and William Meredith’s “The Illiterate.”