Reading this tome by Hudson Owen, I couldn't help thinking he was suffering from delusions of T.S. Eliot ( if Eliot had been dragged from his post at the bank and beaten brain-dead).

This book couldn't have been more appropriately titled as it is, indeed, broken-up into three sections and seemed endless as I read it. The first section is a gathering of several pieces of light verse concerning the fictional personages "Peezis Rilly," and "Dr. Cerpeption." One gets the feeling that Owen's knowledge of rhyme doesn't extend far beyond Dr. Suess or Shel Silverstein because his rhymes often border on nonsense and never achieve a regular metrical pattern. Instead, his poems seem silly and childish with rhythms that clunk along like a train wreck. Here's a sample:

"Peezis Rilly Here
received many letters,
most from sincere war forgetters,
saying a simple thanks.
Hostility came in from cranks..."

Oh my. That's not to say that the other two sections are much better. He deals with serious subjects superficially, often with an impassioned soliloquy that's hard to stomach and there are moments when he throws things in because he thinks he's being profound:

"What is it that these voices say?
They say they cannot smell the moon.
Their muzzles upward point and bay.
They say that Christ is coming soon."

What any of this has to do with anything, I truly don't know (and note the inversion in the third line). This, believe it or not, is arguably the best stanza in the poem. He goes on to introduce references to Greek mythology, the law, our crumbling values, Darwin's Brain, and Prospect Park. Christ, much like his poem, never actually shows up.

Review by JCE