GROWING INTO LOVE

Wry, assertively acerbic brief poems, by the author of Nude Descending a Staircase (1961). Many of the poems have to do with the ill-fitting, ludicrous to searing traditional forms of love and faith. ""Nothing in Heaven functions as it ought; Peter's bifocals, blindly sat on, crack."" A ""dressed to kill"" congregation in Hoboken, once hatched to Heaven, might thirst ""at the very throne for Guinness."" What does one do with a ""copped-out"" faith, except watch the engorgement of the young by chocolate Easter bunnies? But in a time of enclosed egos, love could be a stumble into space. There are moving portraits, some teleological games. Kennedy is chary of the expansive gesture, and wisely, since his is a voice of sad, quiet and barely muffled anger. These poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Atlantic and other publications.