Proses

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Were this collection of memoirs, essays and brief reviews written by anyone less than a Pulitzer Prize winner, it would fade quickly into blessed obscurity. Kizer ( Mermaids in the Basement ) begins with a flat, ungrammatical genealogical sketch that reads like a first draft. Unable to string four paragraphs together without inserting an aside, she drones on about her family's history and her own unremarkable life. Other pieces fare a little better, if only because their subjects are of more interest. But her comments about other poets are usually self-referential, and limited as a result. Thus, in writing of Robinson Jeffers, she begins: ``My parents nearly named me Tamar,'' and we learn later that ``The first poems I ever wrote, on the cusp of my teens, were full of spondees,'' after which she questions if she might have learned these cadences from reading Jeffers. In many of the shorter pieces on contemporary poets (Marge Piercy, James Merrill, Carolyn Forche), she attempts to camouflage her lack of insight with extensive quotes from their works. Other times she falls back on anecdotes, such as her daughter's meeting Gary Snyder in Japan. The majority of readers won't care, and if Kizer has the language skills to make us care, they certainly aren't in evidence. (Nov.)

Library Journal

This volume of essays and criticism by Pultizer Prize winner Kizer introduces a new series, ``Writing Re: Writing''--a dry name for what will prove, if the first book is any indication, a lively series. Each volume features a contemporary poet writing about poetry. In evaluating poetry, Kizer's own criteria include ``pleasure and enlightenment.'' Proses provides these both in equal measure, from the opening autobiographical essay, ``The Stories of My Life,'' to the final essay on contemporary poets called ``An Exaltation of Poets.'' Kizer's criticism does what all good criticism should do: make the reader eager to read or return to the original. Kizer writes compellingly of Dickinson, Pope, Clare, Bogan, Han Yu, Rich, Snyder, and Piercy, among others. Not afraid to tackle her own prejudices, she does change her mind about things, as in the essay on Sylvia Plath where she no longer blames Ted Hughes for Plath's death. These essays tell us why in succinct, captivating prose. Recommended for public and academic libraries.-- Doris Lynch, Oakland P.L., Cal.

Booknews

The inaugural volume in the series is a collection of essays, reviews, and memoirs by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Carolyn Kizer. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)