THE INTERWEAVING POETRY OF AMERICAN HISTORY, "NEW FRONTIERS

By Sherwood Trask '11. NewYork: Pageant Press, Inc., 1967. 131 pp.$5.00.

It would be nice if this book began on page six with the poetry that explains itself instead of with a prose attempt to catch the poetry of American history before it is woven. If one could begin with the first poem, "Straight On," and immediately know "there are golden lines to caravan trails / as to comets' golden tails" - then one might continue till Moderator Nature

Scratches the black dots from the dice And calls us a hung jury.

There is more than America here, since America has almost become the world and the world reflects America. Sherwood Trask tries to catch these reflections and often succeeds. He wishes to take his material As a Japanese takes a simple carp And a simple plant And a simple stream And makes them more than ever they were, Keeping still sublimely simple as in "Beckoning Boyhood." This method works in the private world of memories and impressions. But there are complexities in historical subjects not so easily rendered in symbolic form.

Ironically, war makes a better subject for the poet. In "Feudal Force," the subject of which is crusading, we find an image Of him whose shirt is all undone, Whose breast flames like his eye and Flags as red as heart's desire.

War, like love, is not eliminated by words. Their inclusion, or omission, affects the world or a poem. Consideration and proper use of them enables us to reach That upland of the spirit, Clairvoyancy of coasts. On which the oceans tryst With planetary light There searchers, poking alone, Discover second-sight.

Or, if one prefers to read it in Trask's prose poem "Extension" Let us live lighter, a radiance in the night reflecting glory from the sprays of stars, moon-tone etched ... illuminative fire-flies afloat in the late evening ... guitar-touched ... as exalted as youth betrothed open-eyed to truth and not pretend that repetition or superficial attention can solve the world's dilemma any more than they can help the artist in his aesthetic search.

Miss Beck, Assistant to the Archivist, Baker Library, is an active member of TheThursday Poets at Dartmouth College.