The Destructive Element

Turner Cassity is like a highly accomplished traditional composerCamille Saint-Sans, say, or Richard Strausswho does not doubt that the music is the score and the score is the music. That is, poetry is verse and verse is poetry. Given that confidence, he is prepared to take on any subject. In the forty years he has been publishing, Mr. Cassity has never once written about nothing. Without being predictable, his material nevertheless has certain orientations: colonialism, the military, the Sun Belt, popular culture, Biblical figures, the Muslim countries, architecture, technology, bankingAlthough he can be a relentless satiristidealists are repeatedly savagedhe has surprising sympathies. NCO Clubs should erect a monument to him. Now and then he writes a personal poem, though one suspects it is with some effort. Most of his oeuvre is very impersonal third person. Mr. Cassitys work makes one realize that there is a difference between a truly intellectual poem and a mindless poem on an intellectual subject. Although the author suggested that students of Western Imperialism would have a special interest in this book, we would recommend it to readers of first-rate contemporary poetry as well.