Of No Country I Know: New and Selected Poems and Translations

Ferry's rapturously received translations, most recently The Eclogues of Virgil (Forecasts, June 28) and The Odes of Horace, have won the respect and admiration of peers and audience alike. The appearance of this uneven collection thus won't do much harm, and will introduce many new readers to the better poems here. Ferry tends to work in the academic-domestic mode, where the cares and rhetorics of study, family, travel and worship commingle, and occasionally produce a rebellious spark: ""The answer to that question you asked?/ The whole world in His Hands? Fucked Up? Again?"" Poems from his first two collections On the Way to the Island (1960) and Strangers (1983) seem very much of their respective eras, with the former's formalist impulses seeking an outlet in dailiness, and the latter's post-confessional ruminations forcing some embarrassing repetitions, as in ""A Telephone Call"": ""A strong smell of dog, of my dog's death;/ My old dog is lying there, giving me lessons in dying.// I talked to my father, my father called me tonight:/ The sour breath of the telephone telling the truth."" The collection is rounded out by poems and translations from the past decade, with a section of new work at the head. The uninitiated will be better served by seeking out the full-length translations, but many lines from the new poems suggest that Ferry's best work is yet to come: ""The page is green. Like water words are drifting/ Across the notebook page on a day in June/ Of irresistible good weather. Everything's easy."" (Oct.)