Concerning Western Poetry ed. by Merrill Lewis (review)

334 Western American Literature disappearing into the water, beyond which, on some secluded granite shelf curtained round by the falls, they were pasting together their little wads of debris. Nests.” These stories are finally concerned with no less than the dilemma of modem man: fragmentation, isolation, the need for grace, the idea of service, family, wholeness. And in the midst of this, the necessity for wit, humor, a sense of self-irony. If that sounds like a lot, it is. But Kerr’sstories, in beau­ tiful prose, are written with care and well deserve a careful reading. It is the least one can do for the short story these days. CYNTHIA A. CARLISLE, University of Colorado Concerning Western Poetry. Edited by Merrill Lewis. (Bellingham, WA: Western Washington University, 1980. 118 pages, $2.00.) In his preface to Concerning Western Poetry Merrill Lewis stipulates the impossibility of anthologizing modern or contemporary poetry of western America in such a way as to convey more than general impressions of the West’s literary history. What an editor can do is to publish or republish notable examples of the best poetry available to him. An editor, of course, suffers from fear of coming up far short of administering justice. Neverthe­ less, Lewis, as he should, courageously embarks upon the white water, doing his best, even with his considerable scholarly resources, to stay afloat. For example, he despairs as he reviews the poetry of Roethke: “How could we have missed such a ‘western’ poem?” And, with respect to the forthcoming 50 Western Writers he further despairs that only six western poets will be represented in the volume. I appreciate Lewis’s plight, and I sympathize with him. For I am sure he feels the great need somehow justifiably to present a poetry that seems to him to have considerable, even critical, importance. I went dipping into Lewis’s collection, but then found myself fairly awash in an amazingly fine collection. The clarity, the openness, and the freshness of the mythic West are in it. I read Stafford, Roethke, Wagoner, DeFrees, McPherson, Everson, and others, and the critical material attending selections, with zest and delight. What can I say? To do justice to Concerning Western Poetry would be to reproduce the volume and to use available mailing lists to redistribute it. Perhaps one could ferret out statements with which one could cavil. But I am thankful for the presence of the western spirit in this volume, and I would be overfine and hypercritical to work a disservice against it. I advo­ cate the volume, and I recommend that all readers of this review get a copy and read it immediately. Reviews 335 In Concerning Western Poetry I sense the emergence of mythic form that is a tacit recognition that the poetry of the West is veering toward even more identifiable forms that will express the western setting. Why not? As shown in CWP, western poetry is the product of free sensibility rather than license. And surely that sensibility will achieve a more identifiable mythic context. As in the poetry of Wallace Stevens, the freedom of the imagination will produce the intrinsic forms of the imagination. This is partly borne out in Roethke’s poetry, as is explained in Susan R. Bowers’s article “The Explorer’s Rose: Theodore Roethke’s Mystical Sym­ bol.” “The western rose.” The phrase has charm and freshness — and com­ prises a contribution to mythic tradition. Perhaps, indeed, Roethke “moves outside the confines of the greenhouse to journey from his own geographical and spiritual beginnings to the wild, open edge of his own life and country” as so many other poets in our time should. We may soon learn who the real celebrities of the West are — that they do not produce kitsch, but write seriously, maturely about the human spirit. Lewis is to be congratulated for> CWP and the way it supports and complements due recognition for true celebrities represented in it. CLINTON LARSON, Brigham Young University American Genesis: The American Indian and the Origins of Modern Man. By Jeffrey Goodman. (New York: Summit Books, 1981. 285 pages, $11.95.) This book is a readable and often engrossing account of the...