lOOKS
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appetite ..." In one sense, it has taken Mr. Hall a deal of courage
to set out such a program of social satire for himself (the first half
of his book is devoted to it): he is, in the view of the more simpl6-
minded publicists of poetry in the larger weekly reviewing media,
an academic poet. This means, I suppose, that he should
be
thought
of as confining his concerns to those exemplified in his excellent
"Sestina" in the second part of the book (only the skill of the best
poems of his first book rescue what would look to be an exercise in an
overly modish form), and that he should leave the crying out against
the cities to the self-dramatists that these same critics marshal against
him. But the whole notion of "academic" poetry
is
probably based
on a rather mindless and empty distinction; we might say rather that
the risk Mr. Hall has taken is one of real vulgarity, of selling his own
good taste short.
I must confess that I am not happy about the outcome. It may
be
that the weak poems in the first section of the book tend often
to employ a syllabic (and thus, inaudibly), rhymed verse with which
Mr. Hall does not seem really at home. Or it may be rather that in
trying to render cliches in the proper light, he falls to using them, as
in "Mr. and Mrs. Billings": "'Your wife,' the doctor said / 'Will be
dead / In approximately twelve weeks.' / His left shoe creaks, /
Thought Mr. Billings; and why does he look / Like a doctor in a book /
Or a cigarette ad?" In any case, he is not writing with the same intel–
ligence as when he talks of Ted,
The clever eremite,
Whose cave has comforts like a single be,d,
Books, records, pictures, and a reading light;
He cons himself; the text is in his head.
uWho'sworth the timer said Annie. She was right.
"Oysters and Hermits," from which this is quoted, is I think much
better than almost anything in Mr. Wagoner's book; it represents,
along with "David Hume," "The Morning Porches," "The Presences
of Death" and sections of "Three Poems for Edward Munch," a firm,
mature and authoritative talent recognizable from the poet's
Exiles and
Marriages.
Mr. Hall's affinities are much more for the manner of
Messrs. Larkin and Amis than has been remarked upon; when one
of his personae cries out, it can be monstrously funny, as in the case
of a tailor vowing revenge on his customers: "Tweed handkerchiefs!
Left-handed / Shirts out of turnip skin! / Dogs' bones of silk! Rolled
hats / For Uncles ..."
