DEAR MEN AND WOMEN

Born in 1886, Mr. Wheelock has been publishing poetry fairly continuously since at least 1911. His facility is a mixed virtue. A lyric poet whose style has remained much the same over the years, he tends to run on, to generalize, to swamp the reader with images, and many of these poems might have been improved, as was ""Amagansett Beach Revisited, "" which appeared in a briefer version in the June 1966 New Yorker, by pruning to reveal essential form. Time has, however, added a poignant dignity to his best, most personal poems, which have the appeal of life seen whole and looked back on without regret, and with affection and clarity. The eight opening sonnets to his wife are touchingly gentle. Many of the longer poems display (despite ramblings) considerable strength and vividness; the marks of a talent whose abundance, if sometimes a fault, has also enabled it to remain vital and productive for a surprising number of years.