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ALICIA OSTRIKER
"I could have married Bobby Green years ago. I could have struc–
tured a relationship that would have ended in marriage. I could
have had a decent marriage with Larry Farber. We wouldn't have
had a bad marriage."
"I know I have it with David Astor, if he gives it half a chance.
I love David Astor."
Chapter 4: "She was giving me a good look at top of stocking and panty
girdle. What would my next step be if I was a man?"
(Part II )
Chapter 3: "There I was with $25 worth of goods and a million dollars
worth of trouble."
Chapter 4: "This is what happens. You lean out to your man, ready to
greet him at the end of a day, your feelings all mobilized, and slid–
ing down your spine like a jellied snake comes the rebuff."
"... Animal whimpers from me encourage him."
(Part III)
Chapter 1: "Wasn't it time to stop playing career gi rl and seriously
apply myself to the business of finding a man?"
Chapter 2: "H e began with his tools. An abortion is not a comfortable
feeling."
Excerp ts from the tapes : "I could tell you this whole story in song
lyrics."
Joyce Carol Oates
WEAPONS AND WORDS
OBSCENITI ES. By Michael Casey. Yale. $5.00; paper $1.75.
SAIGON CEMETERY. By D. C. Berry. University of Georgia . $4.00.
TREASURY HOLIDAY. By William Harmon. Wesleyan. $4.75; paper $2.45.
NUCLEAR LOVE. By Eugene Wildman. Swallow. $5.00.
First, two Vietnam books. Neither, thank Apollo, is self-righ–
teous. Probably many of you feel , like me, that if you read one more
pious "protest" poem you will puke.
Michael Casey's
Obscenities,
this year's Yale Younger Poets prize–
winner, is like a
Spoon R iver Anthology
of am, or Willie and Joe
modernized. Casey does it, as Sylvia Plath says, so it feels real. You
follow him and his fellow grunts from conscription to discharge. They
