New & Selected Poems, Appleman 1956-1996

Retold Bible stories, poetic travelogues, lyrics and love poems offer variety in this definitive collection. Many of Appleman's poems collapse under the weight of worthy messages, as in ""Memo to the 21st Century,"" which laments that the fields and woods of Indiana are being replaced by concrete. About the Lascaux caves he writes, ""...remember/ that nothing will keep your lives alive/ but art--the black and ochre visions/ you draw inside your cave."" Appleman's poems (14 new here and 130 drawn from six earlier collections) rise above the average when he lets a single image dominate a poem or when he feels so strongly that his message becomes an anguished cry. A few poems seem glib, some undisciplined or self-indulgent. Lighthearted poems with a consistently sustained tone succeed, as do personal poems in which morals, rather than being forced, develop naturally from particular experience. (Aug.)