SIGNATURE: New and Selected Poems

Harry and Bonaro Overstreet were well-known in the Forties and Fifties as popular psychologists, and Mrs. Overstreet, as Bonaro Wilkinson, published books of poems and a volume, The Poetic Way of Release, that defended the values of poetry to the American audience of 1931. Her latest volume, dedicated to the memory of her husband, and containing a number of poems elegaic in nature, reflects such influences as Robert Frost in his simpler moods, Amy Lowell, and possibly Sara Teasdale; they are the poems of a poetess. Many are rhymed: ""yellow-mellow, white-light, dear-year"" and so forth--and the pathetic fallacy abounds: trees stand by silently, hills pine for people, and waterlily petals are ""timorous."" Presumably Mrs. Overstreet has not read Theodore Roethke on women poets, but one fault on his list she completely avoids. ""Stamping a tiny foot against god"" is not her way; she and the author of the Universe seem to be on very good terms. One hesitates to condemn so many pages full of good will and good-heartedness. Perhaps her most appreciative readers would be poetry-minded fans of Erma Bombeck.