solidify his argument about the influence of ideology upon poetic creation. In the end, Olson seems to suggest, although ideologywill alwayscloud our interpretation, our taskis to remain awake to its presence, and as open to change, one might say, as the prairie. DANIELJ. PHILIPPON UniversityofVirginia 320 WesternAmerican Literature AugustZero. Byjane Miller. (PortTownsend, Washington: Copper Canyon Press, 1993. 90 pages, $11.00.) August Zerois a collection of poetry byJane Miller, which, according to the book’s cover, has been given the “Western States Book Award in Poetry.”The volume contains over forty poems and almost all of them Ifound to be incomprehensible. It pains me to make such a sweeping and negative assessment becauseJane Miller appears to be a talented writer with a strong command of the language, a forceful, distinctive poetic voice, and passionate feelings. The poet is an expert wordsmith who apparently has mastered the basic skill of shaping meter and phrase. She writes in a variety of verse forms, and her imagery, that sinequa non of the very best poetry, is vivid and palpable, to use MacLeish’s defining word. But, overall, the poems are much too complex, too esoteric. Whereas Richard Wagner’s music was once described by Mark Twain as “better than itsounds,”Miller’sverse might be considered the exact opposite. It soundsbetter than it is. The weaknesses ofthis collection are described in thejacket blurb thatstates, as ifin high praise, that Miller “often interrupts narrative impulses withjarringjuxtapositions and metaphors.”These and other devices create “an intensely lyrical language that defies paraphrase.”We are even told, or perhaps warned, that in her poetry “comprehension slips away, is transformed; instead of possession, one learns relationship.”This sounds suspiciously as if instead of wearing an impressive suit of new clothes, the Emperor is actually buck naked. At the veryleast, we expecta poem to reveal something to us, something thatwe had either never known before, or had known but never expressed or been able to express. A violinist might play for us a dazzling array of virtuoso techniques—pizzicato, arpeggio, glissando, double and triple stopping—and, initially, we might be impressed. But unless we are ultimatelyled to some musical inspiration or understanding, we are likelyto tire of such a display of pyrotechnics and long for something more. Similarly, the stylistic skills exhibited in this collection only partly satisfy. The persistently inscrutable nature of the poems in August Zerogenerate neither pleasure nor edification but simply frustration. GEORGE F. DAY University ofNorthernIowa NewMexicoPoetryRenaissance. Edited bySharon Niederman and Miriam Sagan. (SantaFe: Red Crane Books, 1994. 224 pages, $14.95.) Philip Larkin once observed, ‘The first thing I ask of any environment is that it should be ignorable.”He probablywould have hated this book, awork that takes instead Reviews 321 for its credo the words of Robert Creeley that appear in its briefforeword: “Poetry is, if anything, literally specific to place and person alike.” This collection, a homage to the Land of Enchantment, focuses upon forty-one poets—natives, immigrants, and expatriates: Anglo, Hispanic, Asian, and Native Ameri can; male and female—who continue to contribute to New Mexico’s literary landscape. After briefly reviewing the state’s short but rich literary history, the editors identify three generations of poets chosen for the anthology: the first generation appeared in the 1960s; the second includes those academically trained in the 1970s; and the third are those who have been influenced bythe second. But the poets are arranged alphabetically (not by generational groupings), and the editors never explain how these latest genera tions are part ofa renaissance, since by their own reckoning every decade in this century has witnessed vigorous poetic activity. Moreover, the bookfor the mostpartignores poets from the eastern plains, the high desert, and the Middle Rio Grande, preferring in their place those who inhabit the environs from Albuquerque northward. There are exceptions, notably Leo Romero’s “WhatWasThere To Do on the Plains.”But in short, NewMexicoPoetryRenaissanceseems a book constructed for the Northern New Mexico literary community. So what do we have? We have poets who are “romantics rather than classicists,” writers attracted to New Mexico’s “land and light.” We have poems that are largely regional, frequently sentimental. (“Iam engaged to New Mexico...
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May 5, 2011
Rosa Llamas + 1
Open Access