Ukulele Music and Perduta Gente: Perduta Gente

British poet Reading's work, available in an American edition for the first time, is rambunctious, angry, and sometimes hilarious. Here, two books are published as one. Like a ventriloquist, in Ukelele Music Reading intermittently assumes the voice of an obsequious charwoman named Viv, trying to cadge some money from her master, and at other times that of a chronicler of gruesome naval battles and mishaps. What the seemingly unrelated spheres have in common is the dire state of ``H. sap.,'' or homo sapiens, examined in gruesome detail. His obsession with the gross has led British reviewers to call Reading's humor ``too black''--a criticism ushered into his poems, along with a reply: ``What do they think they're playing at, then, these Poetry Wallahs?'' The poet proclaims that ``this is the Age Of The Greatly Bewildered Granny & Grandad, / shitlessly scared by the bad, mindless and jobless and young.'' Reading seems to relish news stories of grotesque violent crimes. Perduta Gente is a collage including press clippings and hand-written notes. The technique is less effective than Reading's amalgam elsewhere of parody and political commentary. (June)