O SLIVER OF LIVER

Once more, as in 4-Way Stop (1976), Livingston offers 40 or so small, evanescent poems, a few incorporating visual elements, a few extending to a full page projecting her impressions of a view; but once more she fails to make much of her initial small thoughts and observations. Some of the poems address their subjects with fatuous questions: Which of us, she asks the bee, ""has the better right to smell the first summer rose""; and she cheers up the Thanksgiving turkey by asking it who else is king at this dinner. There are banal thoughts on friendship--every flower should have one--and three Valentine poems, all of which end flatly with repeated lines. Inoffensive, but unrewarding.