GARDENERS AND ASTRONOMERS: New Poems

Serious in intent yet evocative of much of the brilliance and wit of her earlier collection, The Can of the Rose and its famous Facade, these new poems are characterized by the closer, more spiritual randering of the poet's beliefs about humanity and universal truths. The collection is short- eleven poems in all. Two things emerge sharply; the sameness of imagery, probably a deliberate device, and a tough, calculated quality of metaphor that demands of the reader appreciation and thought as passports to a fine imagination. Science, nature, confused humanity and the great connections among the phenomena of nature are central to the thought. One theme dominates, that the many spring from a common element and are essential unified. Thus is the plant the planet; thus, made more pitiful our hurry to attain the unattainable, our blindness to what lies about us. Miss Sitwell is eloquent in proclaiming the reality of unity and adds depth to her role as interpreter.