Word: mr
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...instance of this intellectual reticence is in the predominating attitude of open acceptance toward ex-President Harry S. Truman, Buckley observed. Even "perceptive" men like Dean Acheson and Adlai Stevenson "fail to stand firm in judiciously assessing Mr. Truman's personal limitations." Instead, they and others yield to "transcendent considerations" and "continue to undermine the standards of honesty and courage and perception by which nations flourish...
Perhaps less can be said for John Cazale and Mary Weed, who played the lovers George Gibbs and Emily Webb. Mr. Cazale's hair is somewhat thinner than one would expect in a sixteen-year-old, and at times he mumbled more like a troubled suburbanite than a New Hampshire swain. Certainly nothing could be said against Miss Weed's interpretation of Emily, which became truly moving in the final scene of the play. But she looked "dressed down" to meet the sixteen-year-old requirement, and was simply not the willowy schoolgirl expected...
...Mr. Phelps' greatest asset, and it is a formidable one, is his ability to come up with striking images, and create effective moods. In his best poems this ability is exploited, and so the simple lyrics are the most effective, and those of a more didactic, or purely symbolic nature tend to fall flat. Mr. Phelps also has a tendency to use slight inaccuracies in syntax, under the impression that they are eminently subtle and thus convey a nuance which could not be obtained any other way. Needless to say, the subtlety remains in the poet's mind, somewhat beyond...
...coherence. Also in Cast From a Coffee House Comedy, the poet rhymes quartz with schmaltz, which is enough to stop any reader right there. The prose poem Battery Manhattan again has its brief moments, but is cluttered with incomplete sentences which have no function, and forced quaintness of expression. Mr. Phelps does however call the cry of a sea gull "Crake," which is amazingly accurate...
Along with the poetry, Identity features illustrations by Kaffe Fassett (who, says the accompanying blurb, loathes milk that boils over.) Mr. Fassett's drawings, while sometimes competent, look somewhat like a cross between Aubrey Beardsley and Basil Wolverton, and add little to the total effort...