The Life and Letters

Feldman's strong ninth collection concerns morality, contemporary culture and a career in poetry. The poems in the first section are probing, written in a musical language. ``Variations on a Theme by May Swenson,'' for example, touches on the loss of a father: ``You understood at last that understanding/ him meant you had to do as he was doing.'' The middle section addresses politics and culture. In ``In Theme Park America'' Feldman uses simple phrases to evoke wonder at the violence we can endure. But he scants the results of violence elsewhere. Genocide enters the territory of the book in ``The Little Children of Hamelin,'' where dead children plead, ``Remember us lost on night's farthest shore.'' Feldman's roles as storyteller and hard-headed realist sometimes clash. The last group of poems makes light of some current critical theories (``Meta-cliche''); describes an encounter with a poet who questions the appropriateness of his name; tells of his relationship with a failed poet who sends him his archives. But overall, this is a rich collection. (Sept.)