NO VACANCIES IN HELL

by Daniel Mark Epstein ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 1973

The author is perhaps most interesting in his monologues (the jewelsmith's last apprentice, John Wilkes Booth to his pals, a letter from a doctor to the Mayor of Baltimore concerning the 1805 plague), although their often humdrum tone and flat language make them seem very slight when compared to the densely textured work of someone like Lowell. Epstein's lyricism is a dreamy combo of elegies (""Blaze Star, where have you gone?"") and narcissistic musings on interchangeable love objects: not ""Seven Women"" but a single one in the introverted eye of the beholder, written about in the rhythms of yesteryear -- ""I loved a girl who was in love with death/ and made him a song she would not sing to me."" Semi-ballads, outmoded stanza patterns, half and full rhymes whose dying forms succeed mainly when the subject echoes those past models -- ""The first cork/ exploded from the bottles, aimed to blast/ a marble frieze of Pan upon the stair/ and everyone who ever was there/ to breathe the spirits moving from the glass"" -- this from ""Miss Ely's 78th Spring Party."" A competent, occasionally moving first collection from a poet born out of his time.

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1973

ISBN: 0871405741

Page Count: -

Publisher: Liveright

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1973

Categories: NONFICTION