Word: spivack
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This slim volume is Spivack's first publishing effort, written while she was a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Independent Study. She has studied with various well-known poets like John Malcolm Brinnin and Robert Lowell, but their influence is remarkably absent in this collection...
...However, Spivack's poetry can be startlingly vivid, and often very fine lines peer through the intimidating mass of bad ones. Almost every poem has a least one strong image or technical device which works well. Her best poem deals with an unpretentious subject: "A Child's Visit to the Biology Lab." When she describes formaldehyde jars, her use of simple detail works beautifully...
Here her alliteration works, subtly drawing the passage together without bombarding the reader with useless repetition. The imagery is strong and suggestive, but not full of the mixed metaphor which detracts in so many of her other pieces. She gives a credible child's insight into an adult world. Spivack writes best when she refrains from being overtly cosmic...
EXCLAMATION points and oozing over-statement fill the entire collection. "howling,/hooding the head against horror. Human!" Her lines abound with histrionics, "oh brain, too much marked cave!" Attempting to be unconventional, Spivack occasionally borrows from e.e. cummings--with disastrous results. Bordering on sentimentality, she often omits capital letters in a consciously precious...
...Spivack's use of formal rhyme produces childish, stilted versification. Her form does not strengthen the poem, but remains glaringly obvious, never blending into the total fabric of the work. She rhymes only to prove she can rhyme...