BOOKS
91
OLD
HORIZON
HORIZONS OF DEATH,
by . Norman Macleod. Parnassus Press,
New
York.
$1.75.
An important book of verse is rarely <;hamber music; usually it in–
tegrates fragments of the poet's experience into a legend with a starting
point and a destination.
Horizons of Death
is divided into four sections
which trace an emotional and intellectual journey from the brilliant land–
scapes of Macleod's Southwest through the industrial jungles of the city;
but it stops short of a destination, and there is no hint of any future but
death. This is the great disappointment in this eagerly expected first
volume by one of America's most gifted anc:! prolific writers.
Perhaps Macleod merely selected fqrty-five pieces from his hundreds
of poems to justify a strange title, but I am moved to wonder if the
reasons for his choice do not amount to an abandonment of his position
close to the revolution. The rigid demands of unity in
Horizons of D eath
required omission of many poems, of course; yet the addition of a fifth
section to the book could have included
Cotton Pickers In A Iabama, Pur–
gatory For T he R tch
and
Coal :Strike,
revolutionary poems which are
l!DOng his best work.
The first two sections deal with the poet's background, his native
New Mexico. In glittering words and startling, multicolored phrases,
Macleod interprets the color and ritual of his Southwest, the slow rhythm
of his lines giving mystical feeling to the calm and agelessness of the
deserts and hills. His images are clear and direct, he captures the moods
of these scenes well, the nobility and vastness of the desert, the black hills
and turquoise skies.
But nobility and silence do not evoke images of li fe to Macleod; it
calls forth dreams of death. Constantly he speaks of
" the sadness
of
dying : the death of all love." -
"And the hills are dead, and w ill not rise again:
And the wind is the sorrow of death."
From the warm peace of New M exican hills the poet is driven among
the steel and stone canyons of an industrial city, and becomes terror–
stricken by the uncertainty and complexity of his new existence. Life
is hardly bearable; for
" there w as no peace in the heavens
. ..
not even a
bluebird can venture forth w ithout fear of being electrocuted."
The
desire for death becomes an obsession, a constantly recurring refrain, and
the book ends on the motif suggested by the title.
Thus we see that Macleod has not gone fa r enough in his journey
toward that satisfying totality, the revolutionary position, which alone
can make life worth while. D espite an occasional outburst of rebellion
his poetry voices aspirations of a confused and al armed middle class looking
for an escape from today. Indeed the entire third section is a prayer to
"Those d.ays of our hardihood: We w ere strnog with silence. I wish we
could go back beyond the years."
The desire to submerge himself, to
