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PARTISAN REVI EW
been cautious, precise, diffident. He never lets mere personality over–
whelm a poem 's pa tient care, nor do the strictures of his verse
undermine its drama tic appeal. Rather like Chekhov or Frost, he has
taken up ordinary, unpromising material-a sleeping lover, a dog out
fo r a walk-and tried
to
describe it freshly , or has reimagined some
m ytho log ica l event. Over the years, his vo ice has put on weight, his
verse become mo re free . But the poems themselves have no t changed
much . They will
always - should
always -be admired , not by a very
large audi ence but by those who care for wha t Gunn himself calls the
"dark exactitude th at
I
igh t delivered. "
Those poe ts who have pers isted in Yvor Winters's discipline and
prejudices have p roduced a poe try th a t seems
to
me pinch ed and
crabbed , neither heartfelt nor mindful o f the express ive and emotive
extremes poe try can deftl y accommoda te. But Timo th y Steele's first
book
Uncertainties and R es t
sh ould no t p ass by unnoticed merely
because he res umes a Wintersian mode. True, his prosody is traditional
and strict, bu t it is deployed in an entirely engaging, convincing
manner. And yes, the kind o f poe try he now writes is neither ambitious
nor pretentious ; it has its lim ita tions , but its advantage li es in knowing
wha t they are. His book fa irl y sparkles with its acknowl edged predilec–
tion s and its own bright promise. It has g iven me, in short, more
pleasure th an an y o ther first book I have read this year.
It
comes
equipped with a ll the modern conveni ences - coca in e and Chardon–
nay, jeans and jogg ing, even a neighborhood deli-but they are in
serv ice to something more than its altoge ther smart surfaces, mo re even
th an its common nos tal g ias and uncommon ideas. Whether , in his
gui se o f detached , lonely o bserver , he is writing thoughtful poems that
contempl a te the poss ible joys of abandoning thought (as he does in
" Rural Co ll oqu y with a Pa inter" and " For My Mo ther"), or drawing
on deep reserves of sense and sensibility (as he does in his bravura
"Three No tes T oward Definition s"), the emphasis throughout is on a
clear-eyed es tima te o f the contemporary intelli gence a t odds now with
itself, now with everything else. Steele's book also includes a waggish
seri es o f epigrams in the mann er of j.V. Cunningham-a stinging
manner one mi ght have tho ught it imposs ible to emul a te. This
exampl e is ca ll ed " Reading Ha bits":
A devo tee o f Sylvi a Pla th ,
She had a mildl y chilling laugh.
I o ffered her Do nne, Ra legh , Martia l,
But she declined th em , being partial
