Word: berman
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...David Berman's rather bulky portfolio of verse represents no appreciable growth in technique or feeling over his last published collection. Verbal pretension and technical sloppiness clutter passage after passage. Berman's poetry has the appearance of craftsmanship, but the shimmer of alliteration and assonance disguises a formless ooze of lush words...
...interesting to compare these poems on a purely technical basis with one by Stephen Sandy a few pages later. In To H.B., Berman ends the first four lines with near-rhymes: said, bad; trite, it. Then, he finishes the section with two other rhyme schemes, each different. The result is confusion which pretends to complexity...
Sandy's poem (Part I) uses no straightforward stanza scheme. Instead, words of related sound appear in the same line quite consistently. "Now they palaver on forever" is a good line in its own right, and it has the further virtue of participating in the structure of the poem. Berman, on the other hand, inserts the following couplet in the midst of conventionally rhymed lines: "The thirst for melted fire that you had/Locked in you like the blueness of you blood...
...SPECIALTIES: Chicago's much-touted Second City improvisational group-where Comedians Shelley Berman, Mike Nichols and Elaine May all began their careers-will bring a new revue to Broadway (Sept. 26). Comedian Mort Sahl is this season's man behind the Golden Theater's 9 o'clock curtain (Dec. 26); and French Actor-Singer Yves Montana" will do a one-man soiree full of songs...
Warwick, R.I., Warwick Musical Theater: Where's Charley?, starring Shelley Berman...