Singing Underneath

One of five winners in the 1987 open competition of the National Poetry Series, Harrison has taken the dictum ""no ideas but in things'' to its logical extreme. His poems are concrete, vivid and meticulously spelled out, whether he is recollecting his Ohio childhood or a more recent vacation in the Adirondacks, or describing a scallop, a foxglove or ``Bathtubs, Three Varieties.'' His observations and draughtsmanship are accurate and acute, but they reflect the more limited experience of eye rather than mind. There is no faulting this young poet's craft; his poems are correct but, in terms of subject and treatment, so small and earthbound as to be ultimately prosaic in their accessibility and mildly disappointing in their quick and easy closures. This volume was selected for the series by James Merrill. (April)