Tragedian

DEAR JUDAS--Robinson Jeffers--Horace Liveright ($2.50).

Poet Jeffers is more than a pessimist; he is a writer of tragedies. The two long poems in this book, Dear Judas and The Loving Shepherdess, are different statements of the same idea: "You see men walking and they seem to be free but look at their faces, they're caught." The first poem is Jeffers' version of the Passion Play, with Judas cast in a major role. The second tells the story of Clare Walker, leading her dwindling flock of sheep along the California coast toward the day when her baby will be born and she will die. Says Poet Jeffers: "There is some relationship between the two . . . poems . . . the shepherdess in one, and Judas and Jesus in the other, each embodying different aspects of love; nearly pure, therefore undeluded, but quite inefficient, in the first; pitying in the second; possessive in the third."

Poet Jeffers lives in a rocky tower on the edge of the continent at Carmel, Cal. He is one of the few living poets who write extended tragedies. Some consider him the most impressive poet the U. S. has ever produced. His verse is in long, unrhymed, irregular lines, usually powerful:

The black spread-eagle against the white cloud

Is cut in my mind past cure; strained basket ribs, and pale clay mouth opening and closing in the air.

Sometimes majestic:

Far eastward beyond the coasts of the continent morning troubled the Atlantic.

Poet Jeffers' other books: Roan Stallion, The Women at Point Stir, Cawdor.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.