Maybe it’s hard to imagine now, but for many years, Kane’s dominance wasn’t a matter of personal preference. It was practically a piece of data — like the name of the president, or the location of Florida. Miles and miles of words have been written about why Orson Welles’s masterpiece was so widely acclaimed — why it was (and is) such a monumental film. And miles and miles of words have been written, of course, about whether it deserves that acclaim — not to mention who, exactly, is responsible for its greatness. But how did Citizen Kane become so firmly established at the top of the canon in the first place? Who put it there?
In the early years, I can’t claim to have attained a great deal of insight, but a funny thing happened in the crucible of my quarterly terror: I stopped reading poetry like a panicked codebreaker. That is, I stopped demanding that every poem yield its concealed meaning, which I suppose is the legacy of outmoded high school English classes. Instead I just read — often aloud — letting the words flow over me and affect me however they could.
In the interests of literature, Roethke embraces the drink, the drama, the fierce emotional weather: “Because brokenheartedness is the note that sustains always and this he can play at will.” However brokenhearted, Barry’s stories always sing.