Volume 38, Number 19 · November 21, 1991
Mapping the Air
By Helen Vendler
An Atlas of the Difficult World: Poems 1988–1991
by Adrienne Rich
Norton, 60 pp., $7.95 (paper)
Region of Unlikeness
by Jorie Graham
Ecco Press, 130 pp., $17.95
The titles of these new volumes by two distinguished poets remind us of literary predecessors. Jorie Graham's title comes from Saint Augustine, who said he found himself far from God, in 'a region of unlikeness.' (The phrase—in the form Land of Unlikeness—was used by Robert Lowell too.) Rich's geographical title may recall titles by Elizabeth Bishop, who called her last book Geography III, and thought of herself as a mapper of those regions named, in another book, North and South. Both Graham and Rich, in their titles, are emphasizing that the description of contemporary culture is a primary commitment of the artist. If for the reader the description is convincing—formally as well as thematically—the poems have a chance; if not, not.
Review, 7069 words
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