PARTISAN REVIEW
151
OVER THE EDGE
THEY FEED THEY LION. By Philip Levine. Atheneum. $3.95 paper.
AN EAR IN BARTRAM'S TREE. By Jonathan Will iams. New Direc–
tions. $1 .95 paper.
RIVERBED. By David Wagoner. Indiana U. Press. $4.95.
Philip Levine's first book of poems
(On The Edge,
1963) was
remarkably good. It demonstrated an already accomplished poet whose
strong voice moved th rough the mostly traditional verse with intelli–
gence, confidence, and an uncanny power to unsettle. Its theme was "the
loss of human power" and "the gradual decay of dignity"; its mood was
one of almost unremitting pessimism:
If it were mine by one word
I would not save any man,
myself or the universe
at such cost: reality.
there
is
no armor or stance,
only the frail dignity
of surrender, which is all
that can separate me now
or then from the dumb beast's fall,
unseen in the frozen snow.
("Night Thoughts over a Sick Child")
Since that first book Levine's pursuit of his central theme has worked a
big transformation in his style:
DOWN THE MOUNTAIN
in Fresno, L.A., Oakland
a man with three names and no features
closes my file.
The winds
are weighed, the distance clocked.
Everything is entered in the book.
(from
They Feed They Lion)
The skill here is, if anything, more obvious: what's especially new is the
immediacy of effect, the almost telegraphic communication of the voice.
In
its blunt, precise movement it mitnics the rhythms of the technology
which promotes the poem's insane assumption: the notion that once
you've recorded data, you've described a life. The last line triggers the
characteristic Levine effect of horror, suggesting by its irrevocab le move–
ment
th~
blind tenacity with which the insane belief is held.
