University of Virginia Library

Cohesive Poetry

I feel that the poems of Mary
North, Paul Breslin, and Neal
Snidow are somewhat cohesive,
perhaps because they are all
students of Alan Williamson. Their
poems are spare, restrained, and
extraordinarily intense; they all
suggest violence under superb
control; they all have sinew. Mrs.
North's poem projects strong
emotions onto a landscape, until at
last the human image is imprinted,
"Tattooed," to the environment;
this poem is, I think, the finest
literary effort in the magazine. Paul
Breslin's "The Fall of the Han"
works backward beautifully to a
simplicity of desolation; and Neal
Snidow's "Sunday in the Country"
presents the superficialalities of life,
minute details, brand names even,
in astonishing density and
precision, as a means of suggesting
the point-blank perilousness of
country, human, life.

The art work in this issue seems
too frail to bear-criticism, although
Mary Garber's drawing on the back
cover has a certain charm.