9 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Passable, October 7, 2000
This review is from: The Light Around the Body (Paperback)
From the author best known to the general public for instigating the "Iron John" men's movement, this volume won a National Book Award back in 1960-something, but as poetry it's not notably better or worse than the norm. The weakest poems are the ones that come off as relatively straightforward protest pieces (one section is titled "The Vietnam War"), but at least they're not as bad as the stupid titles might suggest. (I tend to quake in fear when I encounter poems called "Listening to President Kennedy Lie about the Cuban Invasion".) Elsewhere, Bly indulges freely, and with sporadic success, in the kind of imagistic, semi-surreal verse that characterizes much contemporary poetry. It's not bad; Bly, despite his overuse of "there is/are" constructions, comes up with some nice lines now and then. But only ardent fans of 60's-style anti-war poetry really need this stuff.
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