Tano Festa Eighteen Poems, 1956-1986

Some ``think of him as a modern anti-hero in the style of Joyce; for others he's a crook after Genet,'' Antonella Amendola says in one of three introductory pieces to this slender, bilingual volume. But the combined sense of longing and doom that pervades the work is more reminiscent of Rimbaud. Festa (1938-1988) was perhaps better known as a visual artist than as a writer, exhibiting with the Pop artists in both Italy and New York during the 1960s and 1970s. Six reproductions of his paintings (four in color) here might well be of more interest than the terse, adequate but forgettable poems. Writing with an artist's eye, Festa focuses on light, shadows, the colors of earth and sky: ``This brief moment / a sunset / that turns light into shade.'' He describes what is seen and what is merely remembered: ``The names of my friends / and my name / were written in the sand / then the sea erased it,'' as he says in his first poem, written at age 18. An interview, a memorial essay and biographical data flesh out what is actually more of a festschrift than a book of poems. (Mar.)