The Rainbow Grocery by William Dickey (review)

THE RAINBOW GROCERY BY WILLIAM DICKEY (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1978. 64 pages, $7.00 hardcover, $3.50 paper.) W. H. Auden applauded Dickey's first book of poems, Ofthe Festivity, as displaying both "great intelligence and sensibility" and the "power to speak." He also mentioned the poet's "dispassionate passion," which, it seems to me, is the hallmark of Dickey's latest book ofpoems, The Rainbow Grocery. The Rainbow Grocery is lesstightlywrittenthan Ofthe Festivity. Yet Dickey's poems, even in 1959, were always most remarkable for their projection ofa personality, and it is thewarmth, the comic charm, and thecontrolled-but-convincing emotion ofthese poemsthatmake The Rainbow Grocery such a pleasure to read. Dickey's mildly comic, surrealistic nightmares are among the most entertainingfeatures ofthis volume. "The Visitto Fresno" describesa withdrawn friend who spent much of his time near the radio, building what appeared to be a trap for the emerging words. No one was actually there when he took root in the window box. Dickeyposesas the poet-as-entertainerthroughout most ofthis volume, and in poems such as "Someone Is Looking For Jack" hesuccessfullygeneralizes his own comic pathos into a universal condition. "Being is not a comfort, but an instruction," Dickey says, and "To cry is to begin to become human." Behind simple diction, straightforward rhythm, and easily understandable images, Dickey manipulates the often complex emotional ambiguity of his and our existences: It's for you, what I never sing. So I hope if ever you reach, in the night, for a music that is not there because you need food, or philosophy, or bail, you'll remember to hear the noise that a man might make if he were an amateur, clattering coconut shells, if he were the cavalry, tone-deaf but on its way. As he writes to the tax collector, "I like you because you are such a plain image. You seem to say/ if I pay my tax there is something I can own/ for another year. There's nothing." While Dickey's title poem describes a disquieting, darkness-on-the-edge-of-town sexual nightmare that is uncharacteristically downbeat, it does suggest thecomplex ofemotional desires,joys, and fears that inform the heart of this volume, as well as the relationship between the mundane and the sublime that is at the core of its vision. If The Rainbow Grocery has a weakness, it is thatmany ofitspoems, though kind and clever, suggest barely any meaning at all. "Chickens in San Francisco" ends with "It is no good having any/ unless you can have too much," but less than half the poem seems to contribute to developing or illustrating this idea. "Androids," apparently a criticism of emotionally frigid lovers, is flawed in the same way, while "The Poet's Farewell to His Teeth" is entertaining but completely trivial. ("Teeth" begins with an allusion to Dickey's lost wife, but the rest ofthe poem does not try to develop any relationship between the two losses.) However, Auden also has said that, if heliked a third ofa book ofpoetry, hefelt it was a good book, and The Rainbow Grocery is not half bad. Dickey's talent for haunting and entertaining is a delicious gift: The galaxy is the shape of an eating mouth. The Wolf salivates in the vacuum, the Snake engorges. We must eat to live, and we must kill to eat. The serious cook will always face this problem. MARK SIEGEL* •MARK SIEGEL teaches contemporary literature, film, and popular culture at the University of Wyoming and has a number of publications in these areas. 98VOL. 33, NO. 2 (SPRING 1979) ...