Less can be said for RIP VAN WINKLE'S DREAM by Jeannette Michael Haien, a long, prolix poetic rendering of the Rip Van Winkle tale, already dull enough, and now made duller and more pretentious by this form. It is unbelievable to me how someone who indubitably loves the Budson and Sleepy Hollow region can so fail to render its essential quality in the long descriptions which make up the greater part of the poem. Never in the whole length of it would one say -- ""Ah exactly"". In the end one comes to Rip's dream, the period between 1770 and 1790 when the American Revolution was in the making and made. Granted the current interest in American folklore and the vogue for reworking many an old tale, I can see very little of value or interest in this particular rehash. It has neither historical, local nor poetic appeal.