The Good Thief: Poems (National Poetry Series)
Howe's first collection, chosen by Margaret Atwood for the "National Poetry" series, employs a somewhat simplistic, imprecise, yet fashionable surrealism: there are strange noises in the night, birds appear as omens, dead people converse. Premonitions of doom abound, but nothing is ever told fully: "If the man has died, if the child's illness has taken a sudden/turn, if the house has burned in the middle of night/ and in winter, there is at least a kind of stopping that will/pass for peace." But we never see the house burn, feel the winter's cold, or understand the peace. In the best poems (e.g., "Encounter," "The Beast") Howe hints at large emotional issues that, if explored more fully, might produce some powerful poetry. Rochelle Ratner, formerly Poetry Editor, "Soho Weekly News," New YorkCopyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.