202
PARTISAN REYJEW
sustain both structure and rhetoric toward a tolerable unity of
effect
and,
what is more, an amplitude of statement. It is astonishing how infrequently
we get this quality, in verse on such national subjects, or at least how
infrequently it comes clear of some kind of cheapness. Shapiro's worked–
out visions of Jefferson's classic college, sad with young snobbery, of
the stony white summer ache and magnificence of Washington, of Holly·
wood ("What is more nearly ours?") seem to me of more than topical
intensity and value. There is a tension in them, correctly adjusted,
be–
tween the direct, astringent pathos that suffices for his good poem
011
moving day in New York and the heavily loaded, stunting imagery of
poems like
Waitress
and
Honkytonk,
which I find more barren
thlll
amusing.
Shapiro's wit, which as Mr. Van Doren has noticed "never fails
him," is in itself something to be thankful for, and I do not mean to
invoke any misplaced austerity about it. I merely observe that it would
have been better
if
it
luuJ
failed him at times. Serious poetry weds inven–
tion to formal excellence and to those marks of reserve that we call
taste. Deficiencies in both are fairly common in this book, as you can
see by comparing some of Shapiro's wittiest verse with his best poem.
The Twins:
Sisters kiss freely
and
unsubtle friends
Wrestle like lovers; brothers loudly laugh:
These
in
a dreamier bondage dare not touch.
Each
is the other's soul
and
hears too
much
The heartbeat of the other
...
He has kept the whole thing firmly under control, and given
his
per·
ception that autonomy which is the truth of art.
RoBERT FITZGERALD
Verse Drama. of a Sort
The Revolutionists.
By
Selden Rodman, Illustrated
by
Rudolph C. voe
Ripper. Duell, Sloan and Pearce. $2.75.
This book is advertised as follows on the dust cover:
"The Revolutionists
is in the great tradition of verse plays. Ill
subject is the revolt of the slaves of Haiti. Here, compact of place
aod
time, is the drama of every violent revolution: the decay of the old order,
the brutality of the mas!ers, the triumph of clever leaders, tyranny
aod
terrorism, the struggles of the revolutionists among themselves." Remarb
on dust covers are notoriously silly, but in this case the blurb is true to
the spirit of the work. Mr. Rodman was apparently trying to make
a
poetic drama out of a chunk of history more complicated than
what
Shakespeare used for
Julius Caesar,
with more wars and rumors of wan
than went to the making of
Coriolanus.
He has taken not one hut four
