ESTRANGEMENTS

In this second volume of verse by a college English professor, the poems are controlled, polished, and neatly balanced among references to the personal, the literary, and travel in various countries. They are often, in fact, too neat and articulate; surprise, the unexpected word or image, the awkward idea, are generally lacking. Love and seasons, Naples, Munich, the sea are all treated with an attractive competence, and in the traditional language of poetry, and the book as a whole is civilized, educated, pleasantly readable. Yet occasional lines and whole poems suggest a power and an originality greater than this careful self-control and skill.