AMERICA IS NOT ALL TRAFFIC LIGHTS: Poems of the Midwest

It's hard to be ill-disposed toward a gathering which includes both Carl Sandburg and William Rose Benet and their midwest descendants, Robert Bly and James Wright. This slim anthology is nevertheless disappointing because so many of the selections have been previously anthologized (for example, nine of the 32 poems here can be found in Lucien Stryk's adult collection Heartland) and the less familiar material (work by Ruth Lechlitner and Rachel Albright, say) tends to be neat but unevocative. One also wonders at the omission of William Stafford. Presentable and balanced in its way--there's one Osage chant, a Gwendolyn Brooks poem, a number of women--this is still a narrow-gauge view of midwestern poetry; one which, unlike the poets themselves, scarcely rises above regionalism.