Volume 33, Number 16 · October 23, 1986
In the Zoo of the New
By Helen Vendler
The Triumph of Achilles
by Louise Glück
Ecco Press, 60 pp., $13.50
Local Time
by Stephen Dunn
Morrow/Quill, 110 pp., $6.95
Cats of the Temple
by Brad Leithauser
Knopf, 70 pp., $7.95 (paper)
Thomas and Beulah
by Rita Dove
Carnegie-Mellon University Press, 79 pp., $6.95 (paper)
The catchall nature of the label 'lyric poetry' is put into relief by four such different species of the genus as the books under review. A duckbill platypus, a panda, a whale, and a monkey, gazed at, do not immediately suggest the label 'mammal.' And what we remember, visually, of these animals is not their uninteresting potential for lactation but their wonderful singularity of appearance. In the zoo of the new (Sylvia Plath's phrase) the four books under review are arresting forms. Of their authors, two (Dunn and Glück) are in midcareer, while Dove and Leithauser, both in their thirties, are publishing third and second books respectively. In writing briefly about each of these poets, I want to take up the aims of lyric as they become visible in their work.
Review, 5485 words
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