BOOKS
THE POETR Y OF SUBURBIA
THINGS OF THIS WORLD. By Richard Wilbur. Harcourt, Broce. $3.00.
THE DIAMOND CUTTER AND OTHER POEMS. By Adrienne Cecile
Rich. Harper. $2.75.
A WAY OF LOOKI NG. By Elizabeth Jennings. Rinehart. $2.50.
SOME TREES. By John Ashbery. Yale University Press. $2.50.
FRIDAY'S CHILD. By Wilfred Watson. Farrar, Strau s
&
Cudahy. $2.75.
SECTION: ROCK-DRILL 85-95 DE LOS CANTARES. By Ezra Pound. New
Directions. $3 .00.
The recent
Z eitgeist
in American culture is of suburban
colors, manners, dress. Those who are currently publishing verse are af–
fected by its daily habits and ambitions, and more than a few have mis–
taken its presence for a visitation of the Muse. The importance of the
suburban
Zeitgeist
may not be enduring, but since the end of the Korean
War, its influence has spread cross-country from the suburbs of Boston to
the state of Washington, far beyond the toll-gates of large cities; and
it can be heard and seen as vividly on a college campus as in West–
chester or nearby Long Island.
It
is nourished by the magazines I
find in my dentist's office:
The New Yorker, Life,
and
Time.
It
may
seem strange that popular culture should invade, and so thoroughly
and quickly, the landscapes of academic life; it may not ( I am sure
it does not) represent academic thinking at its centers, yet on the
fringes of the campus it is very much alive, geared to the speed of a
two-toned-strawberry-pink and gingham-blue-station wagon. It is well
known that most of the verse published today is brought forth in the
temporary shelter of universities. Suburban culture has spread its wings
over all the activities that surround the campus, and verse written in
this atmosphere cannot help reflecting the surfaces of everyday
experience.
Another factor influencing the spirit of the verse written today was
the belated "discovery" of Wallace Stevens. Of course, he had been
"discovered" long ago; but in the postwar years it was not only the wit
and inventiveness of Stevens' work, it was the
image
of his success,
