The author of three previous books of poetry and a study of Irish writing, this Alfred University professor turns to Ireland again as the scene for this verse novella, a long psychological portrait of its narrator, a middle-aged American lexicographer who heads to Ireland during WW II in order to sort out his recent divorce. In supple rhythms, Howard shares the earthy consonants and liquid vowels of the Irishmen he marvels at, with their predilections/For whiskey and horses and their cunning indolents and outright rogues. With one section for each of the six years abroad, the narrator admires the Irish neutrality in war and natural sense of tragedy. Suffering himself from an affliction Which causes Iowans to see the world/as more coherent than it really is, this boozy American invader tries to reconcile the stern moralizing of his parentsremembered at the oddest momentswith his evolving sense of instinct, chance, and circumstance as the forces ruling his life. The moral dread of his past relaxes in the bitter, eremitic joy of monastic contemplation, and he finds consolation in a landscape. The bungled life of Howards troubled lexicographer makes for an entertaining poemcompensating for its lack of narrative drive with simple psychic truths. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
"Poetry" USA, July 2000
"Midcentury revolves around perceptive pastoral descriptions and deep respect for those aspects of Irish history and romance which invigorated the Irish Renaissance and shape its culture to this day.
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