Lusions

The wordplay of the title is clarified in section titles (e.g., ""Allusions,"" ""Occlusion,"" ""Seclusion"") that in turn correspond to various epochs of human history. Ragan (The Hunger Wall, 1995) starts at the beginning (""At first silence, a gas or two, a wind unchallenged/ as if some breath were conspiring to leap a word/ across oblivion""), in language that echoes Rilke. Ragan continues his song through the centuries, from Enlightenment to the age of reason, and concludes at the coming millennium (""Free the century's melody as you would/ a line or burden down a well""). Throughout the work, the reader is aware of the intelligence and music that drive these poems: ""It was forbidden for farmers/ to daydream into beauty the glide of crows/ whose haunting flutters lulled the ears of lambs."" The poems demonstrate Ragan's ability to link the poetic and the politic (""In the laughbelly of our prehistoric skulls/ lusions like tumors in the brain/ grow secret terrors into what is taught"") and reveal his pleasure in the ""astonishment of living."" Although the ending returns to the faith in the natural world with which it began (""I grew/ astonished by all conception,/ the frail grandeur of life""), overall this collection offers more for the head than for the heart. (Apr.)