In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

172 WesternAmerican Literature tion.” I’d like to see Sillitoe try her hand (her voice) at the literary essay. Her polemic essay on abuse, “Rescue from Home” (Dialogue, 1990), doesn’t realize the possibilities of that subgenre,just as some of her poems in Crazyfor Living fall short of poetic strength because they are sojournalistically bound. But ifshe would allow the merger of poetry and prose within the essay form, I think she would take delight in the possibilities, just as the Moliere character who was amazed to learn he’d been speaking prose all along. Yet there are in this collection these marvelous last lines—pure poetry by anyone’s standards: . . . like dew on a slick leaf in the murmurous night (“November’s End 1979”) . . .where sea answers shore violining melodies pitched between currents of our speech (“Some Nights”) And in the third section of this collection, ‘Journeys Between,” Sillitoe’s voice reaches its best potential, not bound to reportage but informed by it, transcending to the more spiritual and philosophical than quotidienne. This time the eagle came to me. Not to us, drawn by the vortex of our talk, nor to you, planning the ceremony; but to me alone driving just beyond the roadblock men had set. . . driving towards a ceremony behind a roadblock. It rose from the fields as I approached, paused before my windshield like a mirror, swept to the other side, turning slowly as I turned. This happened before—the vision and roadblock— except that second look. As if delays need not end the journey, this time the eagle came to me. Poetry . . . HELEN B. CANNON Utah State University Place-Dream and OtherPoems. By Robert Glen Deamer. (Lewiston, New York: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1991. 62 pages, $9.95.) The Black Riders and OtherPoems. By Robert Glen Deamer. (Lewiston, New York: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1992. 65 pages, $9.95.) Reviews 173 Does the title “Black Riders”sound familiar? Sure enough, Stephen Crane published Black Riders and OtherLines in 1895. (Crane, a journalist and fiction writer by trade, didn’t like to say “poem.”) In Black Riders and OtherPoems and its sibling, Place-Dream and OtherPoems, Robert Glen Deamer associates strongly with a crew of classic American writers, especially Crane. He addresses the short-lived author of TheRedBadge ofCourage often and intimately in poems such as “Blanket and Spurs,” from Place-Dream. “So when night came, Stephen,/In Germany’s Black Forest,/Were you still dreaming/of that ranch/in Texas?” In empathizing with Crane’s dubiouslyconducted love affairs, especially the unfulfilled relationship with Nellie Crouse, Deamer comes to appreciate “how human/You were—/And how fa­ tally/You were hurt.”Crane would no doubt be pleased by the scrutiny; in our youthful fantasies, we assume someone will rewrite our passions with such devotion. “Westering”appears as a Deamer theme in various guises, concluding with Crane’s, whose “Western stance,”made up in part of self-reliance, courage and masculinity,was discovered in his sojourns in American cowpoke country and in Mexico. The two books also present numerous, heartfelt autobiographical passages rooted in north-central Indiana farmland and several sensuous/spiri­ tual appreciations of Deamer’s own fair love, “Eleny.”Less appealing are forays at social criticism, often accomplished in one sentence, probably meant to be in the fashion of Crane. They remain prosaic. Besides Crane, the figure most evoked by Deamer is Henry David Thoreau. However, the sage of Walden fidgets in the same space as Crane. For better chemistry, it might have been better to place worldly Stephen in one book, transcendental Henry in the other. Reading the clear, often cryptic, poems by Deamer was easy and enjoyable, the deep, thoughtful lines tempered with fun and enthusiasm, as in the homage to Crane, “War-Song”: So bring on, I say, your beautiful Black Riders Charging from the sea: Let them haunt, let them infuse my dream too! DAVE ENGEL Rudolph, Wisconsi) Violence and Grace: Poems about the American West. By Michael L. Johnson (Lawrence, Kansas: Cottonwood Press, 1993. 58 pages, $8.95.) Michael Johnson’s collection of fifty-two short poems follows a rougl historical western chronology, beginning with a section subtitled Trail...

pdf

Share