TIME'S WEB
By
An absolutely awful second book of ""verse"" (as her editor unselfconsciously calls it) by a much-published novelist, though none of the readers of this collection culled from the last forty years of the author's unspeakably boring New England life will understand why. Every bad trick from archaic interjection (""Lo!"") to apostrophe (""O mothers"") to forced rhyme (""elated"" with ""Elevated,"" as in train) to cliche (""Black with thirst"") to the pathetic fallacy (""The oak/ lets down his leaves"") non-graces this drivel. The mediocrity of the author's didactic, conventionalized, wimpy sentiments is perhaps best conveyed by a quote from a neo-St. Vincent Millay (when was the last time we heard of her?) sonnet sequence: ""I think you do not love me; but be kind/ Awhile tonight, and do not tell me so./ Let me stay here and watch the firelight find/ The dark form of your hair before I go."" Etcetera.