ems draw on both geographical and historicalrnlocales before moving to the generalrnplane. Cunningham, on the otherrnhand, writes almost exclusively on thernlevel of generalization. Winters once observed,rn”Cuniringham is seldom perceptivernof the physical universe around him;rnhe does not know what to do with it”; still,rnCunningham is one of the wittiest of allrnmodern poets on sexual subjects, a realmrnthat Winters barely acknowledges. Evenrnthough Winters identified himself as anrnanti-romantic, Cunningham felt that hisrnown classicism, inclining toward plainrnstatement and logical development, wasrnof a much purer t^pe than that of the olderrnpoet.rnIn the case of Cunningham’s epigrams,rnone is simply tempted to quoternthem and let the matter rest. Here arerntwo samples. The first is called “OriginalrnSin”:rnThe trouble with my ex-rnWas mostly sex.rnThe trouble with my newrnIs the to-do.rnThe trouble with them allrnWas Adam’s fall.rnHere lies my wife. Eternal peacernBe to us both with her decease.rnOur squeamish contemporary taste mayrnfind these a bit misogynistic, but if Cunninghamrnhas any true peer it is probablyrnThurber, whom he resembles in manyrnways. True, a steady diet of this sort ofrnthing is probably not conducive to goodrnhealth, but stopping after two is like limitingrnoneself to a like number of peanuts.rnCunningham’s most famous poem is, Irnthink, the great manifesto of a poet whorntakes pride in his minor status:rnHow time reversesrnThe proud in heart!rnI now make versesrnWho aimed at art.rnBut I sleep well.rnAmbitious boysrnWhose big lines swellrnWith spiritual noise,rnDespise me not.rnAnd be not queasyrnTo praise sonrewhat:rnVerse is not easy.rnBut rage who will.rnTime that procured mernGood sense and skillrnOf madness cured me.rnEdgar Bowers (1924-2000) and TurnerrnCassit)’ (b. 1929) represent tvvo aspectsrnof Winters’ legacy, and I regret that I lackrnthe space to do them full honors here.rnBovvers, who won the Bollingcn prize inrn1989, is a strong narrative poet who usuallyrnworks in a blank verse line of pure authorit)’.rnI say this as one who has carriedrnseveral of his poems’ openings in memoryrnfor the better part of 40 years: “I comernto tell you that my son is dead. / Americansrnhave shot him as a spy” (“ThernPrince”). His instincts are elegiac andrnpastoral, and he is at his best evoking thernGeorgia landscapes of his youth (in “Elegy:rnWalking the Line”) and in summoningrnup the Europe of the end of WorldrnWar II and the immediate postwar era,rnwhen he served in occupied Bavaria.rnTwo of the book’s new poems are set inrnBavaria: “Clear-seeing,” an encounterrnwith a clairvoyant and her Wehrmachtrnmajor-general husband, and “Clothes,”rnwhich describes the suicide of a Gennanrnwoman who succumbs to terror after shernadmits, on a routine visa questionnaire,rnftiat she served as a clerk for ftie Ge.stapo.rnAs Bowers inspects the corpse, he has anrnunexpected reaction:rnBent over as if taken bv a cramp,rnI sobbed out loud and, on my uniform.rnVomited up my hmch —over thernhe.rnThe polished buttons and insignia.rnThe little strips of color and therngreenrnEisenhow er jacket w ith its Eaglernpatch.rnThe taut pants in a crease, the glisteningrnjump-boots—rnVomiting and still sobbing, like arnchildrnAwakened in tiie night, and sick.rnWegner and HansrnHeld me, mnrnuiring, “Ach, dearrnsir, the warrnIs over and not over, such thingsrnhappen.”rnIs over and not over. Eor this poet, whornspeaks so well for the war-time experiencesrnof his generation, 1 doubt if it everrnshall be.rnCassit)’, who has described himself as onernof Winters’ “wilder” students, is a quirkyrnsatirist whose subjects range from “ThernNew Dolores Leatiier Bar” (“The leatherrncreaks; studs shine; the chain mail jingles.rn/ Shoulders act as other forms ofrnbangles / In a taste where push has comernto shove”) to the wooden-legged SarahrnBernhardt impersonating Napoleon tornan eleg) for the last Ziegfeld girl.rnCassity, who has obviously traveledrnwidely both in books and out of them (hernwas for years a librarian at Emory University),rnhas an eye for the outrageous and anrnappetite for the bizarre. I am tempted tornagree with Dana Gioia’s assessment thatrnhe is “the most brilliantiy eccentric poetrnin America,” but I would hope that thernobvious attractions of his Ripley’s Believe-rnIt-or-Not approach to poetry do notrncompletely overshadow the rare (and oftenrntoxic) beauties his poetry can reveal.rnHe is at his best in “Berlin-to-Baghdad,”rnan account of a C^erman diver goingrndown in the waters off Seraglio Point inrnthe Constantinople of 1876. What hernfinds discarded in the depths becomes arnmetaphor for what “all his crewmen, andrnthe sultanate / Of all the world have eachrnin his own way / Numbered, bagged, andrntossed.” It is an underwater garden of discardedrnmembers of the harem:rnIn front of him,rnAs if enormous hilips sproutedrnheads,rnA score of women, sewn-up to thernneckrnIn weighted canvas bags, and withrntiieir hairrnThreading the current as it steadies,rnmovernFrom side to side like Humpty-rnDumpstresses.rnI still recall first encountering this poemrnin the Sewanee Review over a decade ago.rnBy the time I reached the end, my jawrnwas literally hanging open.rnWith the current renewal of interest inrnformalist poetr)’, it may well be that Winters’rnlegacy will prove more congenial tornthe present century than to the one justrnpast. If readers of the next decades beginrnto see much of modernism as yet onernmore mistake fostered by a century ofrnblood and error, then the clarity and balancernthat became dogma for this poetrnand text for his followers may ultimatelyrnbe seen as less a detour from the mainrnhighway of literary history than as anrninviting alternate route. crn26/CHRONICLESrnrnrn