Page Eighteen
THE MICHIGAN DAILY MAGAZINE
Sunday, October 20, 1957
'Exiles & Marriages
An Exceptional First Book
d reading. "Six
"f n niNa 'Ja r
RUSSIA
A GRAND TOUR
(Continued from Page 9.)
His degs will whimper
through the webby barn,
Where spiders close his tools '
in a pale gauze
And wait for flies.
When next October's frosts
harden the earth,: Y
And fasten in the yeas's
catastrophe,
The farm will lie like driftwood,
The farmer dead,
and deep in his carved earth.
HIS IS indeed a poem of mar-x
riage; the poet finds affirmation
and direction in the experience of
grief:
I number out the virtues
that are dead,
Remembering his soft DONALD BALL
consistent voice
That sharpened on the diffcult choice w...with every act" in "an'
to tell, age of choice and discontent /
His honesty, his subtlety, Whose emblem is 'The difficult to
and most, choose'." It is Hall's way of driving
The bone that showed life into a corner.
in each deliberate word. Exiles and Marriages is not free
of flaws and Hall's chief one lies,
There is no exaltation of the dead; I think, in his use of wit, although
the vision evoked is one of a bare most critics have praised it. At
and dignified honesty: times Hall's wit happens in bril-
liant, well-turned flashes:
Another rank of virtues Poetical Philander only
was his trade's, thought to love:
invites a secon
(Continued from Page 15) 1
Poets in Search of a Lawyer ana
"The Body Politic" are clever- and flourescent colored socks at
once. close-out sales in the United
N States and re-selling them in
NEITHER of these poems pro- Moscow. His only problem then
duces the pleasant discomfort
of self-recognition, but an almost would be deciding what to do with
embarrassed silence. One sees a the rubles.
poet grimly deterined to amuse N ew buildings on thenoutskirts
a society uncertain that it needs of Moscow house the technical
any poetry at all. Perhaps a great- and scientific departments of the
er sense of detachment between University. Here is one of the
poet and poem would have made a
difference. The other alternative great showplaces for tourists. At-
would be a greater indignation or tention is automatically focused
fury than seems consistent with upon the main building. Its 26
Hall's other, better poems. Wit is floors contain lecture rooms, lab-
irresponsible in immediate effect, oratories, libraries, student living-
for producer or perceiver, what- quarters, and even accomodationa
ever its end; to lack the irresponsi- for some of the professors. Our
bility places the poet dangerously Intourist guide told us that all
near didacticism on brief effect. lectures and discussions were re-
Such a personal stricture on corded. In this way, he said, if a
Hall's poems of wit ought not de- student misses his class, he can
fleet any reader. His fine lyric gift go to the library and listen to
is repeatedly shown in poems that wfhat occurred. He neglected to
are personal without being pri- point out the "1984" effect upon
vate, that are never maudlin or open discussion.
popular in the bad sense. "Carol,"' eiushon. c
"September Ode," "New England The big showplace is, of course'
November," "Jamaica," and "The the Kremlin. In a sense this
Sleeping Giant," are other fine the center of Russia's Disneyland.
poems that plead for quotation Thehmuseums and gardens with-
entire. There can be no doubt that in the walls of the Kremlin are
Donald Hall is a poet with high open as long as the visitor takes
human qualities who cares not care not to step outside the
only about poetry but about life as p a i nt e d white lines on the
well: grounds. The guards did not stand
'out.unousy, ar. t.. ni.s time wea
T HE CLIMAX of the tour was
the visit to the mausoleum.
There Lenin and Stalin lie in
state. It is only open for two
hours a day and fantastic num-
bers of people begin to line up
early every morning. There were
many foreign delegations with
wreaths of flowers and tears in
their eyes. Thee were also thous-
ands of Russians. As "capitaliA-
tourists" we apparently bad ipe'-
cial priority for we were rough$
to the head of the line.
Inside it was cool - the only
place we visited in Russia which
was air-conditioned. The sight
their former leaders lying in a r
markable state of preservatio
and nearly close enough to touc
must have a tremendous psycho
logical impact upon the people.
Even Joe Stalin looked benevolent
in a stern sort of way. It was ima-
pressive.
Throughout our trip the Rus-
sians were good hosts. The "red'
carpet was rolled out for us but
even the Russians couldn't fabric
cate one that was big enough 0
Over up everything.
The fact remains that it is a
country of contrasts. Shabbily
dressed people ride in glass-topp
buses or through subway statio l
lined with marble. To an Ameri-
can visitor they look strange
against a background of brightly
gilded fountains in a park.
But the young rebel from Mos-
cow University who thought that
most of the people just don't care
appeared to be right. By West-
ern standards, the level of liv-
ing is pitifully low. But there are
the promises of tomorrow embod-
ied in the great showplaces. And
most people seem to be eating.
Apparently for some men, espe-
cially those with a background of
hardship and war, this is suffi-
cient. If it is, it is_ a foreboding
manifestation of the power oi
Big Brother.
His working love
of animals and land-
No rhapsodies, but hands
that shaped and made
Domestication of the
- wilderness... .
The poem itself is a fusion of
the values Hall ascribes to his
grandfather with the qualities
which characterize his own best
poems, for the bare bone of each
deliberate word does show, and
domestication is but another name
for making form of chaos "by
He went to bed with what the
girls were symbols of.
I pray for time and place
To shape my changing face
And loose intelligenge
r
.* *By will to excellence,
I learned in a vision a secret
:So that from death will be
that nobody knows: Preserved some part of me.
Criticism must be at least ass
well written as prose. In hate of death I make
These words for my own sake.
At other times what is lighted by
the fdashes is less the substantives The art of poetry does not ask
of the poems than the poet himself more dedication of its maker, nor
whose technical facility will bear the art of living greater confirma-
repeated scrutiny before his wit tion.
out unduly, for by this time we
were accustomed to seeing so
many men in uniform.
Lew Engman, who graduated
from the University last year
(he majored in economics) was
Student Government Council
treasurer and one of the tuno
Honors Convocation representa-
tives last year. He is Presently
studying in London, England.
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