Author Description

"Fresh from the publication of his welcome collected poems (The Owl in the Mask of the Dreamer, LJ 8/93), Alaska-based poet Haines here bravely presents uncollected poems from the period before the appearance of his first volume, Winter News (1966). Although it is possible to discern in these lines the influences of such poets as Robinson Jeffers and Edgar Lee Masters, as well as that of William Carlos Williams, to whom the young Haines first sent these poems, he early developed his own way. These are the works of a young poet?and a young man (as evidenced by the prosodic and emotional awkwardness of "Admission" or "On a Point of Departure"), but there is an uncommon excitement in hearing Haines's mature voice already fully emergent by the end of the volume, as in "Verse" or "Two Horses, One by the Roadside." Haines's poems, characterized by a spartan lyricism and a distinctive, unshowy intelligence, ought to satisfy fastidious and inexperienced readers alike."--Graham Christian, Library Journal.