172
PARTISAN REVIEW
Cudjoc
was beheaded on thc spot with high public
cercmony,
to
discourage fllture brc:lkouts: loose skull
oddly hurtled
down the canyon, as if chasing
his nimbler kinst()lk ....
For
;111
their apparcnt cquanimity, Licberman's POClllS arc made edgy
by history- there is a saving impaticncc herc with history's unspeakable
lessons, and this is rcflcctcd in thc way his lincs lllOVC out against the
restrictions of verse, oscillating betwccn thc unforgiving margins that
nonetheless give the poems their Sh:lpC. Yct, in thc cnd, what shapes these
poems the most is a humane warmth and hl11110r which serve to under–
write all the wonderfully imagined narratives.
In 1977 W. \). Snodgrass publishcd his t()l1rth book,
The Fuehrer
BUllker:A
Cyril'
(!f
POCIIIS ill Pro,f?ress,
which consistcd of twcnty poems about
Hitler's last days. He added to these poems over thc years, conceiving of
them as a dramatic enscmble for stagcd performance, and now, almost
twenty years later, he has finally c0111pleted thc cyclc. The book contains
eighty-seven poems spokcn by a cast dr;lwn fi'O lll the historical records.
Most of thc characters are all too f:l111iliar (Hitler, Goebbe ls, Himmler,
Goring, Speer, and Eva I3raun) but S0111e :lre lesser known (Goebbels' wife
Magda , Generals Heinrici and Weidling, and various functionaries). There
is also a Chorus. The poems cover the period fi-om April I
to
May 1, 19-+3,
and, exccpt for thc Chorus pocms, arc all datcd and introduced with a brief
historical note. The poems are wri tten in various forms, ranging from
sprawling fi-ee verse to scstinas to grid- pocms on graph paper, and they are
printed in various typefaces as well.
All this would bc surprising in a poet oftcn regarded as the progeni–
tor of the "confessionar' pocts were thcsc pocms not already familiar to us
in part. Familiar too is thc respOllSe that Snodgrass has followcd up an
obsession at the expcllSC of his true talent f()]" the personal or confessional
lyric. l3ut these are dispbccd lyrics, mcant not only to probe the historic
matrix of the Third Reich but also thc conncctions thcse people have to
us by virtue of their inhuman humanity. The POClllS tcll a story, or rather
dramatize a story, but the real drallla is what happens to the reader con–
fronted with this mirror. The achieVl'ment of Snodgrass is
to
insist that we
recognize such pcople as people, so that wc arc struck not by the banaliry
of evil so much as thc blatancy of it. To rcstorc Hitlcr and Himmler and
the rest
to
humanity is to require us to own the lll- not that we sympa–
thize (that rcmains rcpugnant), but that wc scc, that wc respond by saying
"this thing of darkncss I acknowledge minc."
