SIX MILE MOUNTAIN

Tillinghast is often referred to as a poet disposed toward work in “the Irish Tradition.” The road to “Six Mile Mountain,” however, despite an enticing buildup, is quite uneven. There are obstacles to full enjoyment, and the poet himself stumbles at times, finally falling headlong into that enormous pothole called “trendiness.” He does haul himself out and continues along the path from which he strayed, but the journey for his readers is marred by these lapses. Tillinghast does his better work in the more traditional forms of the opening and closing poems. Here his voice resonates clearly. He speaks of finding his father in his workshop, for example, “a nimbus of sawdust surrounding his concentration.” Later on, he pays additional homage in a work that intersperses phrases from the Lord’s Prayer with images of his father in his favorite glen plaid, a jacket the poet has inherited. These poems, many dealing with the enigma of loss, are rich in the details that anchor them to specific memories in the poet’s life. Tillinghast’s ear is attuned to the rhythms of language, and the verses about home and school and long walks through a verdant, rainy countryside are evocative and sensual. But his trendy poems have little to recommend them beyond the occasional clever phrase, such as when he compares the world to an adolescent boy “with a Walkman, a can of Coke and an Uzi.”

Though Tillinghast’s collection is scattered and unfocused, and the poet often speaks in a voice as irritating as a falsetto, these do not provide sufficient reasons to avoid him.