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Judith Rodriguez reviews 'Musings' by Anthony Turner, 'Under the Weather' by Laurie Duggan, 'Knabel' by Vicki Viidikas, 'A Photo of Some People in a Football Stadium' by Eric Beach, and 'Invitation to a Marxist Lesbian Party' by Lee Cataldi

by
May 1979, no. 10

Judith Rodriguez reviews 'Musings' by Anthony Turner, 'Under the Weather' by Laurie Duggan, 'Knabel' by Vicki Viidikas, 'A Photo of Some People in a Football Stadium' by Eric Beach, and 'Invitation to a Marxist Lesbian Party' by Lee Cataldi

by
May 1979, no. 10

Every book of poems is to some degree a selection, unless it’s a record of work and gets down among discarded drafts. Anthony Turner’s unpromisingly-titled first book (Musings: A collection of poems, 1965-1977, Hawthorn Press, $4.50 pb, 74 pp) needs so much more editing that it was an unwise venture into covers.

Noting against poems ‘oldie’, ‘exercise’, and worse, I found interest in maybe five or six. ‘The Cloning Machine’ is neat, and there’s decent feeling in ‘News-vendor’. But a poet is accountable in 1978 for what he publishes in 1978, and ‘Hasten the Day’, for instance, is a damning inclusion. Turner might be worth reading if the brief ‘Detour’ had been on, not off, his customary route.

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