Tipping Point

Marchant's first book considers the American appetite for self-destruction. Its distinction lies in his chiseled control of language. Control is challenged by the poet's preoccupation with violence; violence tests Marchant's mettle and seems to raise the standard of the writing. His book begins with the domestic, describing, for instance, the ``almost punitive scrub'' a father gives to his own hands--a purification also experienced as a punishment. In other poems, the same man abuses his wife in a furor that is observed with chilling precision. Honed lines and stanzas never overdramatize such situations; Marchant is melodiously severe, especially in writing about people who don't know themselves well enough to save themselves. He writes insightfully, too, about war and kindred moral dilemmas, though his strategic tact with short lines and concise stanzas may seem to outdo the accomplishment of the more visually dispersed and voluptuous war poems. Authority is one of Marchant's richest subjects: he seems to recognize its innate ugliness, but neither flees nor glamorizes it. (July) *HOW-TO