Expect Delays

Delight and capaciousness are hallmarks of the New York school,in which Berkson (Snippets) has carved a unique place for himself, but few of his contemporaries achieve the distinct blend of tenderness, pathos, and meddling fun that define so many of his poems. Here, he focuses on the endless parade of stimuli in American culture and the endless capacity of language to capture it. Berkson moves fast, and a lament for a fictional character will just as soon shift registers to celebrate Berkson's mother's 100th birthday with an ecstatic, Whitmanesque line. When his poems disappoint, as they often do, it might be because they rarely amount to anything more than their disparate parts, as in the long, collaged "Songs for Bands," in which Berkson settles for collage as an end unto itself and is content, at times, to remind us of songs we already know. But it's hard to stay mad at Berkson, who is always flitting to the next quote, the next city, the next fragment of Mandelstam. And, oddly, Mandelstam may be the poet with whom Berkson shares his closest bond, both of them ecstatic in the throes of language, both of them ready to declare, "My breath, my warmth has already lain on the panes of eternity." (Nov.)