“to stand apart from the natural worldrnand to dominate it.” In “Poetic Meter inrnEnglish: Roots and Possibilities,” we findrnin 17 pages one of the most enlightened,rnsuccinct analyses of American metrics torndate. Other essays tackle Yeats’ supernaturalrn”System” (it does not really matterrnas we read his poems), fanaticism,rnand “Words and Healing: What’s In Itrnfor the Poet?”rnThe Rule That Liberates imparts arnhealthy respect for and curiosity aboutrnhow great poems are composed, and arnclearer understanding that poetry shouldrnbe fun. Moore cites Frost’s “no surprisernfor the poet, no surprise for the reader,”rnand reminds us of the healthy underiyingrnfrivolity of much really good poetry. Forrnexample, in “Classicism in Poetry,” herndescribes the “stultifying” phenomenonrnof “the quest for the perfect poem.”rnLet us call it, remembering anrnincident in the Second WorldrnWar, the poem which is 100rnpercent efficient. Field MarshallrnMontgomery, who was fond ofrntaking pot shots at his PrimernMinister’s self-indulgent habits,rnonce boasted, “I don’t smoke andrnI don’t drink, and I’m 100% efficient.”rnWhen the remark reachedrnChurchill, he replied, “I drink arnlot and I smoke big cigars and I’mrn200% efficient.”rnSo is this book.rnJane Greer edits and publishes PlainsrnPoetry Journal in Bismarck, NorthrnDakota.rnDreams of Goldrnby Gregory McNameernBig Dreams: Into the Heartrnof Californiarnby Bill BarichrnNew York: Pantheon;rn546 pp., $24.00rnIf California were to secede from thernUnited States and establish itself, as itsrnfirst Anglo settlers once intended, as anrnindependent republic, it would instantlyrnemerge as one of the wodd’s richest nations.rnAs it is, one in every ten Americansrnnow resides in the so-called GoldenrnState. Its economy affects not only thosernof neighboring states but those of wholernnations—Mexico, Canada, Singapore,rneven Japan. It is somehow different inrnjust about every way from the rest of therncountry. To live in California is, as AldousrnHuxley observed, to be forever partrnof a separate reality.rnBill Barich, a journalist, undertakes tornprovide a portrait of his state in his finernand aptly titled book Big Dreams. Hisrnmethod is to travel from Point A to PointrnB and to narrate all that he sees, a commonrnenough literary device that is neverthelessrnchallenged by California’s vastness.rnRealizing the complexity of hisrnmission, Barich offers us a beeline ramblernthrough the state, beginning in thernhigh desert east of Mount Shasta andrnwandering leisurely through the KlamathrnRiver Valley, Crescent City and Hoopa,rnthe Tuscan landscapes of the AndersonrnValley and the Monterey Peninsula,rndown to Death Valley and the dustyrnshores of the Salton Sea. The author’srnappreciation of the subtleties that separaternone place from the next yield a lucid,rnentertaining travelogue.rnWith his command of California history,rnBarich sees continuities that otherrnwriters have sometimes ovedooked. OrangernCounty country-clubbers may curlrntheir lips in revulsion at the mention ofrnlibertine San Francisco—a cultural antipathyrnfrom which Ronald Reaganrnmade much political hay—since SanrnFrancisco has long been “willing to takernin every misfit Californian, as well asrnmisfits from elsewhere—the wounded,rnthe defrocked, the intellectually adventurous,rnand the sexually prurient—and itrnbound them together into a communityrnthat managed to work. That was its geniusrnand its salvation.” It remains so today.rnBarich has a gift for painting largernword pictures, framing whole cities andrnbioregions in the space of a paragraph orrntwo. The sweep of his vision causes himrnto trip on occasional facts; his account ofrnthe origin of Boontling, an impenetrablernMendocino County argot, is false, as arernmany of his place-name etymologies.rnStill, he conjures up descriptions thatrnlinger in the mind, as when he limnsrnLos Angeles as “the world’s firstrnpostapocalyptic, postmodern, posditeraterncity, a place without absolute boundariesrnthat floated freely beyond the grasprnof history, parody, and any concerns otherrnthan the momentary.”rnHis ferreting out of oddments andrnironies that alternately reinforce and destroyrnCalifornia stereotypes makesrnBarich’s book especially entertaining.rnThe official corporate biographers ofrnboth men, for instance, will not bernpleased by his observation that Walt Disneyrnand Ray Kroc (the founder of McDonald’s)rnserved together in an ambulancernunit in Wodd War I, where Krocrnspent his leisure time in French restaurantsrnand brothels while Disney carefullyrnmanufactured fake German helmets,rncomplete with bullet holes and chickenrnblood. Disney’s arts of deception wouldrnsoon alter the very landscape of California,rnthough Kroc seems to have left hisrnknowledge of haute cuisine somewherernon the Western Front.rnBarich wryly notes that despite arnhalf-century of anti-Chinese (and laterrnanti-Japanese) activism on the part ofrnits Anglo overseers, California has longrnbenefited in every way from its Asianrnties, to say nothing of its Asian-Americanrncitizens. He takes little joy in pointingrnout one of the state’s few current growthrnindustries in a recession-mired economyrnwhen he notes that “only the prisonsrnwere as overcrowded as the publicrnschools,” and he warns that illegal immigrationrnthreatens to destroy an alreadyrnstrained network of social services.rnBarich closes Big Dreams on a strangelyrnoptimistic note, given all that he hasrnseen and recorded and his knowledgernthat the population of California canrnonly grow while its resources wane. (Perhapsrnhe has not heard, too, that CharlesrnManson’s followers are more numerousrntoday than they were in 1969.) Even arnclear-eyed journalist, I suppose, hasrnsomewhere to indulge in fond speculation;rnand California has always been, andrnmay always be, the place where Americansrngo to test their fantasies—and thernweirder, the bigger, the better.rnGregory McNamee’s most recent book isrnGila: The Life and Death of anrnAmerican River (Crown).rn32/CHRONlCLESrnrnrn