THE VERGIL WOODS

Mr. Braun is a scholarly poet, a university English professor whose poetic themes and treatment of them reflect his literary training. Restraint shapes his poems and myths, history, and other poets influence several, such as ""The Rape of Europa,"" ""Adam Naming,"" or ""From Caesar's Camp,"" and even those that do not follow a traditional rhyme-scheme are tightly woven and self-contained. Yet this apparent academic dispassion has, at second look, charm and the strength of quiet precision. The underlying emotions, meshed in disarmingly calm and intellectual phrases, emerge with greater force for having been unsuspected, underplayed. A civilized, conversational assurance, a control over form and emotions, opens surprisingly to reveal paradoxes and questions; apparently simple phrases turn out to have pinned down unusual insights into the ""commonplaces"" of life. Self-contained, giving little away for free, but seriously and intently aware, Mr. Braun reveals in his first book an interesting poet and personality.