American Smooth

Dove has written some great poems and there are some good ones in here. I get the feeling while reading some books of poems that the author is just getting a book out there instead of letting these things sit awhile and then revising them. I don't think this is necessarily a fault of Dove, but of publishing in general.

Dove hits the mark with some lines and descriptions: “a dirty wingspan/of the daily news” and “tidy rupture.” “Twelve Chairs” and “Evening Primrose” are my favorite sequences in the book. As part of an installation by Larry Kirkland, the “Twelve Chairs” sequence was carved on the backs of twelve marble chairs in the lobby of the Federal Court House in Sacramento.