Corvus

Ironic in-jokey, post-beat hipster and quietly beautiful lyricist, avant-gardist Hollo (Outlying Districts) graciously draws readers to his work in these poems through both the copious notes supplied with many of them and the gently funny, probing tone assumed throughout. The opening poem ``1991,'' an elegy to his sister, moves in a moment from dark reflection, ``At the rites we think of the old days when belief/ made words reach the dead/ a resonance / gone,'' to light, ``OK Sis/ now of no fixed address in the kingdom of Dis/ Miz Ubi Sunt,'' never failing to carry us along. Hollo often quotes, invokes or directly addresses the poets of his waning generation (Ed Sanders, Robert Creeley, the late Ted Berrigan) or plays himself off poets of all ages and languages, many of whom (Yevtushenko, Brecht, Allen Ginsberg) he has translated into English or Finnish. His preoccupations with literature are woven into reflections in which we spot our more articulate selves; never trite or off-balance, these are poems that sustain. (Dec.)