482
line segments without doing
damage
to
the integrity of the po–
ems. Since space is limited here,
I will simply say that no one
who reads poetry should be with–
out
The House on Marshland.
For fiction, I recommend An–
dree Connors'
Amateur People,
1977 winner of the Fiction Col–
lective/ Braziller First Novel
Contest.
Amateur People
is a
wild escapade into the inner
terrain of the psyche. Wry, reck–
less, and obviously enraptured
with language, Connors zooms
along as if writing were as easy
as riding a motorcycle. It is a
daredevil race at that. There ate
some rough spots, and Connors
will take you to places you may
not have wanted to go, but she
catapults her way around with
such skillful exuberance that
you will feel exhilarated, if
somewhat shaky, after the ride.
There is simply nothing quite
like
Amateur People.
DAVID IGNATOW: What I've
admired in the past of Rezni–
koff's poems still remain for me
as the best of his work, his
marvelous imagist and objectiv–
ist poems, some not more than
five lines long. In these modes he
ranks with the masters of Chi–
nese poetry, in my opinion.
Rez~
nikoff was writing about the
immigrant working class mainly
during the period when Carl
Sandburg was flourishing as a
poet of the people and gaining a
world -wide reputation, but one
PARTISAN REVIEW
has only to compare the work of
these two poets
to
recognize the
injustice done to Reznikoff by
the silence critics let fall upon
his books time after time as they
emerged.
If
his style is calm and
seemingly quiescent by compar–
ison with Sandburg's exclama–
tory manner, Reznikoff is more
tellingly precise and ultimately
as one reads poem after poem far
more profoundly illuminating.
Perhaps one explanation for
the neglect with which he was
treated during his lifetime could
be found in his principles as a
poet. Of them a ll, the principle
which he practised most faith–
fully and that shaped his best
I ~ng
poems derived from the
Objectivist ideal to record
events, situations and even char–
acter studies with the strictest
adherence to the facts of the
subject so that they could stand
free, as it were, of the writer's
overt arrangement. In other
words, the facts were to speak for
themselves, with the author
merely arranging them in an
order which wou ld allow them
to speak. It was a method de–
signed to bring a greater influ–
ence to bear upon the reader who
would not feel the author in–
truding to voice his own judg–
ments, thus permitting the
reader to feel and appreciate the
situation in its "pure" state. In
one respect, the method could be
likened to the role of the court
stenographer or of a journalist
