CELEBRATIONS OF THE HEART

How is this Rod McKuen different from all other Rod McKuens? Well, there's the title and, and. . . . Otherwise the ""poems"" are the same old platitudinous slabs signifying only that McKuen marches to the drum of the cash register which has performed so loyally for him in gift and book stores throughout the land. In addition to the banality of the sentiments (""I can look upon you/ As the mover of mountains""), the unmusical clonk of the lines (""I'd call/but how would I begin/ let alone maintain/ a conversation?""), McKuen simply does not know when to stop. A beginning more promising than most--""Anyway/ who wants to play/ with Ken and Barbie dolls/ when there's G.I. Joe/with seven different uniforms""--grinds down with ""acting out their fantasies/ nightly on TV."" But the McKuen beat (or lack thereof) goes on, so stock this on that shelf once reserved for the oeuvre of Edgar Guest, of whom Dorothy Parker once sang: ""I'd rather flunk a Wasserman test/ Than read a poem by. . . .