Writing the World

Cherry, an author of poetry, fiction and the memoir The Exiled Heart, here collects 23 of her essays on literature and writing, first published mainly in small magazines but often extensively rewritten. Though Cherry says she has structured the book as a prose poem, with essays brief and long echoing issues of creativity, time and place, she ranges far enough afield to make this book better suited for browsing. The author's musings are candid if not compelling, her style fluid if not arresting. ``In the book, an artistic idea does reshape the world,'' Cherry insists, describing a work of hers based on the romance she had with a Latvian composer, a romance thwarted by the Cold War. She reflects on studying lit crit with Allen Tate and muses on her generational ``siblings'' fellow Southern poets Henry Taylor, R.H.W. Dillard and Fred Chappel. (May)