Books

...A similar humility of Professor Kung on other topics marks his many withheld judgments in these thoughtful essays...

...Though he can speak in the accents of the swamp-'celtic rhophobic South, he is no Snopes...

...THOMAS E. QUIGLEY Signposts for the Future, by Hans Kung, Doubleday, $7.95 [203 pp.] This is a collection of essays, interviews, and one radio dialogue (with Pin-chas Lapide) done by the priest of the diocese of Luzern who is professor of dogmatic and ecumenical studies at the state university of Tubingen in Germany...

...Regarding his racist campaign for governor in 1970, Carter "had to do wrong, to pretend a racism he never felt, to do right...

...Primarily it shows a Catholic reminding fellow-members of his church in whatever station that their fidelity to the person and teaching of Jesus is their best fidelity to God and his Holy Spirit...

...he repeatedly poses such imponderables as, what kind of America will this most overtly Christian of presidents leave behind...

...he is "pastor of the American church" and the very incarnation of his own church's triple marks of puritan, democrat and missionary...

...The final judgment (though time will tell) is of a pure-hearted outsider, the best his regional and religious tradition has to offer...

...A church made up of faithful such as these is worth adhering to...

...The unknown mocks us—like an egg in a catcher's mitt...

...Other, forceful judgments are not withheld...

...Baker purports to tell all about what makes Southern Baptists tick (and presumably different from others) and what makes Jimmy run...

...As a matter of fact, eight of the offerings in this volume are not in verse at all but rather in vapid prose paragraphs...

...Throughout these poems Orlen is fascinated with light as a symbol for the artistic process, a natural example of that energy which illuminates, defines, discovers, and creates...

...Scattered through the book are certain insights of the highest quality—not least of them one by Orthodox Rabbi Lapide, on the resurrection of Jesus, who opts for a biblical and humble "I do not know'' in preference to defining a priori God's saving action...

...What Baker does provide is an engaging, anecdotal and often witty tour of Carter's political physiognomy, all warts carefully explained, if not explained away...

...The call Jesus of Nazareth issued was to perfect trust in God and to doing his will, which is nothing other than humanity's total well-being...

...But what of the imprecision, the idiomatic baldness, and the syntactical confusion...

...He goes the further mile in guessing that born again politics Commonweal: 766 as exercised through a "ministerial presidency" may determine "once for all" whether Christians best redeem the times from within the system or as prophetic outsiders...

...Such care and craft beckon the reader to other poems in this volume, especially to "The Drunken Man," "The Streetfighter," and "The Last Whore," poems which win for Steve Orlen permission to speak and which leave the rest of us hoping that he will continue to do so.__________________ In brief A Southern Baptist in the White HOUSE, by James T. Baker, Westminster Press, $3.95 [154pp.] Baker attempts for Carter what Cogley did for Kennedy, advising the goyim that while the President's religious convictions are real they won't retard the cause of liberty and justice...

...Although these poems are well-executed, some (particularly the "painting" poems) seem to me excessively introspective and ingeniously abstract...

...The direct address, alliterative phrasing, brusque rhythm, bare diction, and understated ending all combine to express the poet's emotional turmoil, his feelings of anger, frustration, bitterness, sorrow, and longing...

...In "Ukrainian Pastoral," "Country House," "Being Married," Six Persimmon," Instructions for Painting a Corpse," "The Painter: A Meditation," and "Self-Portrait" Orlen describes the triumphs, failures, and paradoxes of creating art, of imposing upon the various, vacillating movements of life and intelligible stillness...

...The author is on the firmest ground in discussing the intra-confessional Christian questions that are his specialty...

...time will tell" and "we shall see...

...He acknowledges in a preface that the ecumenical dialogue with Jews is comparatively new to him and proves it discussing the church's origins from Israel and the gospel narratives of Jesus's trial in a spirit bordering on New Testament fundamentalism...

...Such insistence quickly becomes tedious when it is characterized by awkard combinations of phrase, capricious shiftings of line length, and absurd figures...

...She blushed when you mentioned suicide, but kissed you like a meathook...

...LeFevre's sestina fails to meet the strict requirements of the form—namely, that the last word of each line, not the last syllable, be repeated in a pattern of cruciate retrogradation and that the envoy include three of the repeated words at the end of each line and three in the middle...

...thus the poem is an excuse in that genre which complains about the difficulty of writing poetry only to have the artistry of the complaint belie the argument.' No such artistry appears here...

...GERARD S. SLOYAN 24 November 1978: 767...

...The word trilateral, however, as in commission, never once appears in the book...

...For example I quote these lines from "Pickup": She didn't want to bore you, so she screwed you to a confession...

...One is forced to conclude that the author of these lines has difficulty writing poetry...

...Steve Orlen's Permission to Speak, another volume from the Wesleyan Poetry Program, is for the most part a taut and interesting performance...

...Its teaching is their teaching and conversely...

...The coarseness here, it may be argued, is intentional...

...The ethics or behavior of the Christian is the proof of discipleship...

...Perhaps the last words of it, a play on the sounds of the author's name, and may stand as the last words on it, a telling example of the wit and wisdom therein: Epitaph Here lies Adam LeFevre Ever a mad elf...

...Balancing this naivete' is a quite splendid discussion of the psychological and sociological problems attending participation in the Sunday worship currently available in Catholic and Protestant churches...

...he will "use liberal techniques to accomplish conservative goals...

...The latter concludes: l Beverly, The night they took you away I imagined myself in the ditch, My flesh on fire, curled against Your careless breathing, Plotting love...

...And its dullness, unfortunately, is the kind which results when someone insists unconvincingly that the trivial and idiosyncratic is actually large and important...

...He believes Americans have been ' 'disciplined by Vietnam and Watergate" and wants, like FDR, to put the country back to work...

...Orlen is a serious-minded poet who explores the hinterland between life and art, between substance and shadow...

...And what can one say in defense of the poet who sees the sky as "blue saliva," who coins the phrase "afraid eyes," and who is capable of these similes: Knowing her was like bowling a perfect game...

...I dreamt Your face, and your hands That parted the dark, were mine, And groaned to share your misery, But I found mine in good time...

...I prefer the immediacy and vividness of Orlen's memories and portraits, especially the title poems, "Permission to Speak," a recollection of a sleigh ride in spring snow and the glimpse of a red fox, and "In Praise of Beverly," a touching reminiscence of the poet's first "fallen angel...

...Like anything the embattled Swiss theologian writes, it is well worth examining...

...A glimmer of invention, intelligence, or insight shines forth in only a few poems—"Western," a humorous, touching portrayal of a wounded cowboy, "The Pheasant Hunter," an economical and precise description, "Elegy for a Taxidermist," a poignant, ironical notice of death, and "Chiaroscuro with Pathetic Fallacy," a short lyric which, despite its ungainly title, reaches for grace and vitality...

...The subject of his "Sestina Sestina" is the difficulty of writing ses-tinas...

...Although this volume from the distinguished Wesleyan Poetry Program is attractively presented (except for the misprint "be" for "he" on p. 23 and the pretentious blurb on the back in which LeFevre "acknowledges a kinship" in his first volume with such poets as Lorca and Neruda), it is a disappointment...

...But, like his subject, he delivers far less than he portends...

...Because when metaphor requires metaphor it's like a ladle lost in hot stew...

...And if further evidence be needed, one has only to look at LeFevre's experiments with conventional metrical schemes...

...The rest of the volume, however, is preponderantly dull...

...A mad elf and a serious poet EVERYTHING ALL AT ONCE Adam LeFevre Wesleyan U. Press, $7.50 [64 pp.] PERMISSION TO SPEAK Steve Orlen Wesleyan U. Press, $7.50 [63 pp.] Robert Miela ADAM LEFEVRE'S first volume of poetry, Everything All At Once, gives us precious little, and that in dribs and drabs...