ROCKS ON A PLATTER

paper 0-8195-6373-0 In the right hands, the most recondite poetry can shine with a grace that’s stronger than any obfuscation, enabling the verse to be enjoyed when it’s beyond sensible interpretation. Guest’s new work, however, makes all the pretensions to heavy-mindedness that we have come to expect of the contemporary academic scene without delivering much at all in the semblance of reward. This volume consists of a single—and rather drawn-out—poem that plays with our notions of communication and understanding much as a happy and well-fed Labrador might play with one of its master’s oldest and most comfortable shoes. From the first line (—Ideas. As they find themselves. In trees?—) to the last section (—is the desire of the stone figure / to outlive a sheepfold?—), Guest attempts to work out the implications of the creative process—the nature of perception, the willfulness of language and of descriptive acts of every kind, and the arbitrary construction of meaning—all the while creating a work about the act of creation itself. This kind of radical self-consciousness is a standard theme of modern life, of course, just as Guest’s expression of it makes use of an equally standard literary epistemology of the how-can-I-know-what-I-am-saying school (with more than a nod to T.S. Eliot, standing over there next to Descartes). But the powerful spirit needed to animate it all is lacking here, and the result is a mass of circular lucubration that will appeal to few.