Hello, La Jolla by Edward Dorn, and: Cottonwood Moon by Richard F. Fleck, and: The Dark Playground (Poems 1970–1978) by Lawrence P. Spingarn (review)

340 Western American Literature Hello, La Jolla. By Edward Dorn. (Berkeley: Wingbow Press, 1978. 92 pages, $3,50.) Cottonwood Moon. By Richard F. Fleck. Illustrated by Mary J. Breckenride . (Laramie: Jelm Mountain Publications, 1979. 54 pages.) The Dark Playground (Poems 1970-1978). By Lawrence P. Spingarn. (Van Nuys: Perivale Press, 1979. 96 pages, $3.75.) A versatile and talented poet, Edward Dorn’s creative activity ranges from poetry to nonfiction. In these short pieces Dorn gleefully indulges in irony and satire and converts a private experience or view into a public statement. Though not poetic, some of his very short pieces are interesting, laconic, and thought-provoking. Some examples: Now we’re hearing stalin wasn’t good, he was accurate. (“Upping the Ante on Detente”) My motto is: attain the inevitable (“The Broughton Quote”) Law is anything which is Boldly asserted And plausibly maintained (“The Burr Quote”) Of more than seventy poems in the collection, the most poetically rewarding is “ALASKA: in Two Parts.” In this poem Dorn does not generalize, and does not seem learned. Here the poet is expressive, effective, and eloquent. For sheer management of sounds, one should not miss the first poem, “Sup­ pertime Down South.” On the whole, the present collection is varied and not thematically unified; I believe some of the pieces could be excluded from the book. And why footnotes? Despite his immense academic background, Richard F. Fleck, currently associate professor of English at the University of Wyoming, Laramie, has gallantly steered clear of academic influences in his poetic creations, if Cottonwood Moon is any indication. He richly endows his poetry with colors and smoothly orchestrates his lines with exquisite sounds. Fleck is a poet of the eye and ear. He is a nature poet and sees the splendour of snow and the green needles of pine. The mellifluousness of his poetry awakens the reader’s senses. In many ways he may be considered a romantic poet, combining Keatsian sensuousness and Shelleyean abstractness: to sweep sheets of grey rain across prairie grasses already green enough. What can a soul do here but melt into the earth where golden banner sprouts forth in creamy, yellow waves. (“Story, Wyoming”) Reviews 341 Symbolism pervades Fleck’s poetry, more so because of the poet’s concern with time, truth, and spirit. In poem after poem, the word “ancient” keeps recurring as an abstract motif. Fleck not only paints nature — not on a broad canvas — but recognizes in it a source for philosophical contempla­ tion. This reviewer likes all the poems in the collection. Cottonwood Moon is both of the American West and the world. The last to be considered in this review is Lawrence Spingarn’s The Dark Playground, a collection of seventy poems properly grouped in five sections, which, as the publishers affirm, characterizes “an age of weakening standards, creeping triviality, and dangerous values, deftly exposes falseness and pretension in all their guises.” Tightly constructed, lines of one stanza echoing those of another with firm interconnections, Spingarn’s The Dark Playground poems are honestly conceived and rooted in concrete perceptions. The poems are charged with grim humor and pathos. All the poems are modern in their tone, diction, and imagery. The social stance of the poet is revealed in the title itself. The poems ought to appeal to or disturb all the readers who are in one way or another faced with the dark and ugly realities of modem life. The first poem, “Area Code 312,” begins with “The static is awful. / Five million people are busy” and ties in a circular motion with the last three lines: “The static is awful. . . ./Five Million People ( I think) / Will crash my funeral.” Spingam is wholly engaged, perhaps pessimistically, in the bleak reality of the modem world that he cannot escape from. Using the traditional sonnet form, Spingarn in “Keep Moving” moves the reader grimly to dust. The sonnet is rich in imagery, associative imagery, connota­ tions, and atmosphere. This collection is a welcome contribution to the contemporary poetry of the American West. I admire the intensity of the poems. S. S. MOORTY (S. MURTHY SIKHA) Southern Utah State College Greasybear Songs. By Charley John Greasybear. Selected and...