WILSON'S NIGHT THOUGHTS

This is a chronologically arranged collection of prose and poetry (the earliest here, dating from 1917-1919) characterized by spontaneity and wit. The most recent material is published for the first time in this collection, but many of the older pieces are taken from Poet's Fareweill and Note Books of Night. Among the more recent verse are short epigrams, a rhyming cross-word, funny "Anagrams on Eminent. Authors", "Easy Exercises in the Use of Difficult Words", and a few rather long, tongue-in-check poems using amphisbaenies (backward rhyme) throughout- a fierce intellectual exercise familiar to certain 20th-century poets. There are a few serious prose selections here and an intimate and moving poem from 1942, "On Eliting Scott Fitzgerald's Papers". The nature of the materials included add up to splotchy reading. For Wilson followers, who are fondly familiar with his writing, this offers some delightful insights.