Volume 35, Number 14 · September 29, 1988
New York Pastoral
By Helen Vendler
Selected Poems
by James Schuyler
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 292 pp., $25.00
James Schuyler is that unlikely writer in contemporary New York, a pastoral poet. Though he has, understandably enough, been linked geographically with his friends Frank O'Hara, John Ashbery, and Kenneth Koch in what is called the New York School of poetry, his work, despite some superficial resemblances of form (short lines like O'Hara's, long lines like Koch's), is not like theirs. Schuyler is not radically allegorical, like Ashbery, but literal; he is not a social poet, like O'Hara, but a poet of loneliness; he is not comical and narrative, like Koch, but wistful and atmospheric. Though he has increasingly refused to write a 'well-made poem,' he is perfectly capable of the classic neatly turned lyric (he is an admirer of Herrick). I shall consider the short lyrics later, but any commentator on Schuyler must first deal with the strange long poems that are scattered through his work, from 'The Crystal Lithium' through 'Hymn to Life' and 'The Morning of the Poem.'
Review, 2485 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |