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PARTISAN REVIEW
writing, its place (or placelessness) in postmodern culture. "W e want to
say," Hartman writes, ''' It is in conce ivabl e,' yet we know it was con–
ceived and acted upon systematically. W e continue to harbor, therefore, a
sense o f improbability, not because there is any doubt whatsoever about
the Shoah as fac t but because what we li ved through , o r what we have
learned about, cannot be part of us: the mind rej ects it, casts it out - or it
casts out the mind."
T his kind of history-telling has both immense rewards and risks. By
returning these horribl e events
to
th e human times and places in whi ch
they occurred , such hi story becomes humanly, if not divinel y, account–
able. At the same time, this kind o f w riting suggests that we, and no one
else, are also accountable fo r bo th the histo ri es we write and the conclu–
sions we draw from them.
JAMES E. YOUNG
Poetic Images
CORRIDOR.
By
Jonathan Aaron. W es leya n/Uni ve rsity Press of N ew
England. $22. 50.
THE NIGHT WORLD AND THE WORLD NIGHT.
By
Franz Wright.
Carnegie-Mellon University Press. $16.95.
CANVAS.
By
Adam Zagajewski. Translated by R enata Gorcznski , Benj amin
Ivry and
C.
K. Williams. Farrar, Straus
&
Giroux. $20.00.
Most likely, where twenti eth centu ry poe try has excell ed is in its use
o f imagery . In no o ther century, no oth er literature of the past, has image
been so important. In an age o f ideology and adve rtisement, th e poe t
trusts the eye more than the ear. There are small truths of individual im–
ages, as it were, but not one great truth. Metaphysically, the modern poets
are still with the Pre-Socrati c philosophers. Every poeti c images asks why
is there something rath er than nothing as it renews our astonishment at
the way things exist. Much of th e pleasure o f reading these three poe ts
comes from the way in which they think w ith their images.
Franz Wright has published six previous collections o f poe try. These
are short books, and for a very good reason. Wright is a perfectionist, and
he writes short poems. His new book has poems that run to a page and a
half, but his sensibility is still that o f a miniaturist fo r whom conciseness is
synonomous with poetry. It occurs to me reading Wri ght that his secret
ambition is to w rite an epic on the inside o f a matchbook cove r. H ere is a
line of his that for me, at least, suggests an endless story:
