An Afternoon of Pocket Billiards by Henry Taylor (review)

part of this well-organized work. In addition to formal lexical repetitions and the obvious lyricism of his Whitmanesque "song of myself," Mard's poem exhibits complex phonological patterning which constitutes the basis of the poem's recognized melodic construction. Davison's presentation of phonological patterning is a unique contribution to die study of poetic musicality. Each stanza is printed in published form. On a facing page appears a line-by-line analysis of phonemic patterns for each stanza. In each line of poetry Davison highlights the repetition of phonemic material in red characters. Such a graphic representation of sound patterning facilitates the reader's comprehension of Mard's virtuosity. Below each stanza, there appears a prose discussion of the sound patterns in blue. Here, Davison indicates only the presence of patterning without reading into die patterns any emotional or conceptual significance. Rather, he invites the reader to discover his own impressions aroused by the interplay of phonic and conceptual aspects of the poem. Perhaps the most appealing feature of the book is its accurate depiction of musical qualities without the distraction of statistical data. The text is, in a sense, a handbook which can easily serve as a model for future studies of Modernist poetry. It is fitting, then, that the work captures in a pleasing visual approach, the sonorous experiments in one of Modernism's sonatas and symphonies in verse. HOWARD M. FRASER Howard M. Fraser teaches at the College of William and Mary, Williamsburg , Virginia. AN AFTERNOON OF POCKET BILLIARDS BY HENRY TAYLOR (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1975. x+78 pages, $6.00.) With this most recent collection, An Afternoon of Pocket Billiards, Henry Taylor continues to develop a poetic stance that marks him as a unique, eclectic writer whose concern for form and content is at once academic as well as popular: he can speak to all of us. An Afternoon of Pocket Billiards offers a variety of styles and themes; no two poems are the same just as no two billiard shots are the same. The voice shifts from personal, almost confessional, as in "To Hear My Head 102BOOK REVIEWS Roar," to a character mask, such as "The New York Poet." Mr. Taylor is skilled at both. In "Goodbye to the Old Friends," an elegant, moving sestina , he speaks warmly and philosophically; the language is clear, precise; the voice is personal, yet not exclusive of the reader. In "Snapshot" Mr. Taylor again shows his remarkable talent for developing unforgettable characters , especially in humorous situations. Though mosdy recognized as a "Southern" poet by the setting of many of his poems, Mr. Taylor uses the Western experience of place in several of the poems in An Afternoon of Pocket Billiards. "Storm Mountain Slide Area" shows a shift of form to enhance subject, idea, and place — more of an open form, yet with a strong sense of control and boundary. And in "Buildings and Grounds" the Southerner is placed in the West, in Salt Lake City, with hilarious results: I will station an iron jockey by die driveway to stare back into die pitiless eyes of my neighbors' pink plastic flamingoes, I will keep a Tennessee Walking Horse in die garage and give him a foxhound for company, I will stand out in front in a white linen suit surveying my plantation, I will plant a magnolia tree. If one seeks in poetry a philosophical or mythic experience, An Afternoon of Pocket Billiards offers "Burning a Horse": Burning at last, die horse was blackening and shrinking into the tall meadow grass; and then, before us, there, from coals that had caught hold in the horse's bones, we saw a horse, made whole, with heavy flesh and shining skin, rippling against the pull, rising from the grass around the dying fire . . . Or if one seeks the clear, strong, simple expression of the human condition, Mr. Taylor gives "Breakings": So nothing changes, nothing stays the same, and I have returned from a broken home alone, to ask for a job breaking horses. ROCKY MOUNTAIN REVIEW103 I watch a colt on a long line making tracks in dust, and think of the kinds of breakings there are...