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LUCKY DARRYL BY BILL KNOTT and JAMES TATE (New York: Release Press, 1976. 52 pages, $3.00) Lucky Darryl, a collaborative "novel" by poets James Tate (The Lost Pilot, Oblivion Ha-Ha) and Bill Knott (The Naomi Poems, Nights ofNaomi) is not properly a novel at all. It's too short, for one thing. It lacks an identifiable protagonist for another. (Darryl, we're told would go door to door, through entire neighborhoods, and also stop people on the street and in supermarkets, and show a photo of himself to them. 'Do you recognize this man? They would all say no.) It has a storyline rather than a plot—Darryl searches for Veronica, catching up with her finally in Brasilia. And there's a situation where one might reasonably expect a setting: One day a city newer than Brasilia would be built. Then Veronica with her entourage of globetrotters would leave Brasilia for that city. But for now, they and she were trapped here. They had long ago exhausted all the cities of the world, and when Brasilia had been erected, they had no choice but to come . . . For them this was the last city on earth. I don't know what Lucky Darrylis. It's too prosaicto be a poem. Too much a poem to be prose. And too much ofeither to be both. But whatever it is, it's a joy to read. Knott's sense of loss and Tate's of reclamation often come together here in just the right proportion. I can't remember when I have seen two talents blend so nicely. Lucky Darryl is just, well, a special little book. JAY M. BOYER* ?JAY M. BOYER'S work has appeared in a wide variety of periodicals. He currently teaches at Arizona State University. ROCKY MOUNTAIN REVIEW151 ...

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