Donald Justice

Donald Justice

One of the twentieth century’s most quietly influential poets, Donald Justice was a master of poetic form and technique, as well as a masterful teacher of poetry. Long associated with the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Justice helped guide a generation of poets through their earliest work, including Rita Dove, Mark Strand and Charles Wright. His own verse was noted for its formal control, depth of insight, and limpid, elegiac lines. However, technical prowess "never calls attention to itself in Justice's understated work," claimed Dana Gioia in the Southern Review, nor was Justice ever considered a “confessional” poet, often using his poems to efface the self rather than vaunt it. Though his early and late styles use more traditional meters, his overall career denies easy categorization. Comfortable in free verse as well as forms like the sestina, villanelle and sonnet, Justice was equally at ease with more experimental modes. Dana Gioia described Justice as a “serious experimentalist,” one who “discarded traditional form but also, eventually, conventional notions of genre, sequential exposition, originality, and even authorial control.” Working within the confines of the short poem, Justice explored the possibilities of formal, free and experimental poetry throughout his long career.

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