A Draft of Light

May 19, 2008
The title poem of Hollander's 19th book of poems announces that ”light keeps one thing in the dark:/ The matter of its very origins.” With its turn on a colloquial phrase (“in the dark”), its investigation of philosophical problems and its interest in unanswerable questions, the punning claim typifies this sometimes didactic but ultimately moving collection. The Yale-based poet has always made his wide learning known: formal agility and literary history are once again on display—here are syllabics, deft haiku stanzas, virtuosic collations of off-rhyme and witty updates on the Romantic ballad, the medieval lament and the popular song of the sheet-music era. Half the volume might be classed as light verse—one poem pursues “Allegories on the banks of the Nile,” and another ends by asking “what's a 'meta-' for?” Yet the book shines when it takes up more serious concerns: the New York City of Hollander's childhood, which he recalls with delight, casts its retrospective light on old age, and some of the best stanzas use their wordplay to reflect on “what we have all been sentenced to, the full stop.” Detractors might find too much language about language, but admirers will respond that here we see one of the smartest writers having fun and exploring, with elegance and gravity, his own life.

May 15, 2008
The author of 18 collections of poetry and eight books of criticism, Connecticut poet laureate Hollander has been acclaimed for his formal verse since the publication of "A Crackling of Thorns" (1958), selected by W.H. Auden for the Yale Younger Poets award. Here he continues the tradition with sonnets, ballads, haiku, and variations of these forms. As one would expect of a poet whose work has been set to music, Hollander sees poetry as an oral art even though it is first written on paper. What one might not expect from this 78-year-old poet is the wordplay, lighthearted tone, and general mischievousness that seems to come trippingly from his pento paraphrase a line from "Hamlet", a technique with which Hollander is very familiar. This volume's title poem, for example, ends with a paraphrase of T.S. Eliot's "Little Gidding." Other poems paraphrase Percy Bysshe Shelley, Wallace Stevens, and Joyce Kilmer, to say nothing of William Shakespeare. Like Shakespeare, Hollander fuses a somber tone with comic conventions, resulting in the poetic equivalent of the problem play. Highly recommended for academic and larger public libraries.Diane Scharper, Towson Univ., MD

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