Meditations on the insatiable soul Poems

"I can live and die with no more/Fame," writes Bly who, in the nine years since his last poetry collection, has become a best-selling author (Iron John, LJ 11/15/90), TV celebrity, and guru of the men's movement. He needn't worry, since it's likely that this text will neither augment nor diminish his long-assured reputation as an influential postwar poet. Still drawing on the "granary of images"-bones, hawks, and black sun-and the rituals of dance and evocation reminiscent of his shamanistic early work, Bly offers oracular pronouncements ("Some ill-smelling, libidinous, worm-shouldered/Deep reaching desirousness rules the countryside") and sage advice ("Let heaven and earth go their ways"). In many respects the diction is Yeatsian, but it somehow lacks momentum; and though the motions Bly goes through are colorful, they are motions just the same. Intriguing moments aside, this work rarely rises above it precedents.-Fred Muratori, Cornell Univ. Lib. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.