FOR YOU, MY LOVE

A lengthy and embarrassing tribute in poetry to a loved one and to the sexual and spiritual benefits derived from the same. For the eager adolescent audience which gobbled up Benton's This is my Beloved, this is a self-conscious apology for sex with its air of errant naughtiness. Awash in gangling prose are ruminations about the physical attributes of the beloved and a smug wrangle with the ascetic admonitions of the New Testament. Occasionally in a disciplined passage the poet achieves some unity of tone, but in general the sprawling verse lolls drunkenly against the poet's erotic obsessions. Phrases like"" 'mid look, 'mid scent, 'mid twinge"" and ""Why is it that when I can be with you I feel all straightened out and strong inside"" may afford some measure of amusement. Unfortunate, but prepare for sales.