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THE PILL VERSUS THE
SPRINGHILL MINE DISAS
TER. Richard Brautigan. A
Delta Book. $1.95
Review by Greg Kazma
These are poems with a high fact
value.
The Chinese Checker Players
When I was six years eld
I played Chines checkers
with a woman
who was ninety-three years old.
She lived by herself
la aa apartment down the hall
from oars.
We played Chinese checkers
every Monday and Thursday nights.
While we played she usually talked
about her husband
who had been dead for seventy years, .
and we drank tea and ate cookies
and cheated.
there Is so much "to" these poems,
so many clean edges and surprising
perspectives, so much fresh language,
that Brautigan is able to carry the
r ms off on instincts akme. While there
the danger in this kind of writing
in emphasizing the slight to the point
of preclousness or sentimentality,
Brautigan's eye never wallows in the
trivial, his vision is always precise and
original, and the heart that beats la
these poems is an intelligent ono.
Mas
With his hatoa
he's about five laches taller
than a taxlcahv
In some of the best poems ha touches
a . real immensity one that goes
beyond the many kinds of wit of which
he is a master. "Tbs fcrcr ilssusest"
I find haunting and unforgettabla.
I walked across the park to fat fever
monument. It was ia the center of
a glass sqoart surrounded by red
flowers and foantams. The monument
was m the shaped of a sea hone and
the plaqne read we got hot and died.
Besides "The Fever Monument," "The
Rape of Ophelia and a few others
(those that might be called the mora
ambitious poems in the book, the deeply
provocativ or mysterious) the bulk of
the others attend to preserving the
perishable fleeting experiences of daily
life. While many other poets take such
occasions as opportunities for heaping
allusions or indulging mythologies
Brautigan's Joust with time is but a
gentle hand on its shoulder. The quick
and economic poems which make up
the bulk of the book are just one level
above the reverent silence for the things
of the universe. These poems lodge la
cur csnsdousness as ca&y as the com
mon things which they are about have
lodged there. They help us In our small
random lives toward new possibilities
of awareness.
THURSDAY, APRIL 30, 1970
THE DAILY NEBRASKAN
It, J
PAGE 5
