BURN DOWN THE ICONS: Poems

Poems,"" Grace Schulman has said, ""are prayers to see things whole."" Here she attempts to ""stop the blur of trees, the flow of roads,"" and find that point at which ""nightingales. . . sing beyond confusion."" However, her own arch language gets in the way. Rather than placing herself, as she suggests, ""at the bottom of that rock/ From which altars are built,"" Schulman elevates the rock into abstractions: ""For years I would lessen your nobility,/ call it impulsive, plead/ it was useless, say/ the sudden splendid act is no great thing,/ survival is; the steady patient choice/ of rightness over time, and excellence--patience, the hero's passion."" She remains too distant from her subject to make it palpable for the reader: ""Anger: Flame quivers to survive the wind/ As music drowns the sea and stills the mind."" Icons are fabricated, not burned, in Burn Down the Icons.