Book Reviews


skinned women," of friends and ex-lovers. It is also
where "middle-class malaria/thrives on lies" (Sitting
Decent), where lonely ladies watch the soaps over "tea/
and crunchies" (An Anonymous Woman), where "home" is
"a red nest" full of "ants" (Taking a Midnight Sandwich).
"The best roads lead/from the city" (Sitting Decent),
the speaker concludes, but there is no way out. No exit.
Terrorists and gunrunners hold the boundaries. Anomie
rules.

 And Jonathan Small? One suspects that he will break
through the perimeter, that future homecomings will
accommodate both place and word. He is a poet. While he
may feel like "Ulysses/caught between rocks," he has "a
trump" up his "sleeve" (Death of a Pineapple Salad).

 In Remembering Dylan Thomas, we are told that Thomas
would have "fought/an octopod for words, risked life and
limb/to make a whole line patronymic." Similarly, Small
elects to "search for weapons/to outride the night."
He "will not go gentle in this uncertain/light:" his "bags
are packed with weapons/to spill blood." And poems too,
one hopes.



 Michael S. Sharp
 University of Puerto Rico
 Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico