BOOKS
649
erings, zones of sensibility that have erupted into rhythm. He writes
of "the birth of a phrase" as the origin of poetic composition. The
poem, then, moves within the orbit of a given rhythmic trace, ex–
ploring and fulfilling its imperatives. This would account for the ab–
solute distinctiveness of each separate poem - no set metric or agenda
has been allowed to interfere with the life of the emerging organism.
In
his prose-poem "Bivouac," Middleton recalls the belief of the
Polish Chassidim, that a "pneuma" (or spirit-breath) dwelt within
the pages of the sacred texts . I like to think of Middleton's own
poems as small gusts of pneuma, captured and shaped, waiting to be
released by the eye and ear of the reader. Readers tired of the water
diet of contemporary American poetry should break their involun–
tary fast here.
Middleton once characterized the prose style of Robert Walser
as one of "snailhorn delicacy." The phrase, as
I
hope
I
have sug–
gested, applies no less to his own work. But it can also be used with
reference to the calibrated minims of Samuel Menashe. Like Mid–
dleton, Menashe is a poet of subtle breath stops and fine detail. He
differs in that he is also a poet of overtly formal tendencies. Whether
his occasion is light and celebratory:
or elegiac:
or epigrammatic:
Sky thrust from town
Vaults high towers
But comes down
To flowers
-"May"
Darkness stored
Becomes a star
At whose core
You, dead, are
-untitled
Sharpen your wit–
Each half of it-
