DWELLERS IN THE WOOD: Two Poems by John Clare

If you tend to be wary of illustrated poems, consider this as a narrative experience locked with the marten ""twisting round his den,"" and especially with the badger who, baited and beleagured, still attacks ""Till kicked and torn and beaten out he lies/ And leaves his hold and cackles, groans, and dies."" An experience because each couplet is dramatized by a full or double-page drawing putting the focus on the content rather. than the form. And the illustrations are altogether in keeping with the spirit and style of the poems: especially, again, in the Badger, they create a rude, roistering nineteenth century milieu--the coarse villagers, the savage dogs, the badger at last breath surrounded by boots. The image remains, and the outrage.