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Loading... The Venetian Vespers: Poemsby Anthony Hecht
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)811.54Literature English (North America) American poetry 20th Century 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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Still, this book failed to ignite anything in me beyond admiration. The poems impress but do not move or surprise. It’s a strange thing – I chalk it up to a complete lack of palate cleansing in a book that has the intensity of a rich dessert. There’s no room, amidst the dense ornament of the poems, to consider the flavour of the imagery. In fact, there is so much of everything that almost nothing can make an impact or truly resonate. These poems are the opposite of spare or aphoristic. Deploying a syntax weighty with adjectives and layered with extra (though sometimes lovely) clauses, Hecht continually flirts with grandiloquence. Added to that, he occasionally (and annoyingly) comes off as smugly superior. His “Application for a Grant” sneers at bartenders, politicians and athletes (“their brains squeezed out through their pores”) before ending on a falsely modest note about the poet’s humble ambitions.
The Venetian Vespers is certainly an accomplished book, with wit, insight and flawlessly modulated cadence, and it is worth a read. For talent, Hecht deserves a higher rating, but for overall effect, I think three stars is fair. For readers who enjoy closely observed long poems, however, this book may rate higher. ( )