Familiar As A Sparrow by Veneta Leatham Nielsen (review)

240 Western American Literature the peaceable urges of Ahbleza, the subtle refusal to attribute much if any blame to encroaching white civilization, and the drunken Indian syndrome which climaxes the story — these, too, are coarse strands in the weaving of the novel. There is much redemption in the graceful flow of Mrs. Hill’s words, in the sheer quantity of cultural detail she provides, and — especially— in many intimate moments of love and friendship. Scenes like Olepi’s court­ ship of his first wife, Ahbleza’s childhood companionship with Tonweya, and the sensitive love affair between Tonweya and a captured Crow woman go a long way toward obscuring what some readers will detect as uneven bias and rough textures. WILLIAM BLOODWORTH, East Carolina University Familiar As A Sparrow. By Veneta Leatham Nielsen. (Provo, Utah: BYU Press, 1978. 83 pages, $4.95.) The vexing truth that, as separate consciousness, we humans cannot really cross over and enter each other’s minds but must each remain iso­ lated within the capsule of Self, is sometimes mitigated by what seems to be the magic of poetry. Veneta Nielsen’s new collection — her first was Under Sound — has more than 50 poems, and among them are an amaz­ ing number of hits at simultaneous targets in both hearts and minds of readers. For instance, when reading “From Where We Are,” or “Monu­ ment,” or “A Renga of Spaces and Syllables Between Dreams” — and in so many more — one thinks: “It’s my own fleeting revelation, my deep buried feeling she has actualized with words, brought into light and form! For this poet’s themes, while personal, are archetypal. The poems come from rare occasions of insight, or ecstasy, grief, or longing. There is not a frivolous, cutet, or clever example here. The language is layered, evoca­ tive, yet straightforward, piercingly clear, and it is quietly musical, with­ out pretentious effect. Asection called “The Penitent Voice: A Prison Suite” shows a remarkable empathy with the inner experiences of a group of in­ mates that the poet organized into a writing class. In other sections are wonderfully exact portraits of old age, as in “Rosabell-lel-lel” where “The ladies in our rest home / nod their silver leaf-veined heads.” In Veneta Nielsen Utah has a fine poet whose work should come to wider recog­ nition. MAY SWENSON, Los Angeles, California ...