312
MARIUS BEWLEY
York scene, can be outrageously sentimental, but in the qualified
manner of
The Saint of Bleecker Street
or
West Side Story.
Here
is
the first line and the last verse of "Graffiti":
Blessings on all the kids who improve the signs in the subways .
..
A boy and a girl are giggling behind an iron pillar}'
And although the train pulls in and takes them on their way
Into a winter that will freeze them forever}
They leave behind a wall scrawled all over with flowers
That shoot great drops of gism through the sky.
This puts me in mind not of Holden Caulfield in an outspoken
moment but of Perdita and Florizel choreographed at the modem
equivalent of a sheep-shearers' feast by Jerome Robbins. The remark '
is not meant to be frivolous. I sense a certain perception and substance
in Mr. Field's verse, but I find it a little difficult to isolate
in
his
particular style. The late William Carlos Williams is quoted on the dust
jacket (inevitably) as saying, "... you've got the stuff." Quite possibly:
but apart from stating that the "stuff" is often attractive in
these
verses, I am willing to leave it to the Lamont Poetry Selection Com–
mittee to give a more detailed definition of its peculiar quality.
Marius Bewley
I
