From Publishers Weekly For all of its erudition--Greek dedications， Latin mottos， French phrases--this winner of the 1992 Walt Whitman Award of the Academy of American Poets (judged by Richard Howard) is essentially a debut collection of effete confessional poetry replete with descriptions of prettified botany including mistletoe， bougainvillea and wisteria. Characteristically， the speaker addresses an anonymous "You，" dropping hints about the life they lead together， usually in exotic or foreign surroundings， while retaining a coquettish stance that excludes the reader. The verse is structured with exaggerated irony and tortuous syntax ("Hornblasts! They jarred us from the engines' snore / And cheesy air of what the door sign called / The 'Dinning Room' to spraydrift， sidechurn. . . "). Yenser often employs enjambment from line to line or stanza to stanza， with a mannered effect ("Yet， how to pluck， to be plucked like the harp / the rain has hanged upon the willow / Before it learns the plot to break. . . "). In the end， the poems seem out of date (characters wire news to one another and speak in witty archaisms)， and the painstaking attention to the details of picturesque setting creates a self-consciously ornamental work. Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information， Inc. From Library Journal Yenser， who has written critical books on James Merrill and Robert Lowell ( The Consuming Myth: The Works of James Merrill ， LJ 2/15/87; Circle to Circle: The Poetry of Robert Lowell ， LJ 11/15/76)， demonstrates in his first book of poetry how much he's learned from Lowell's later work. Seemingly reconstructed from journal entries， the tightly controlled poems that open the book record the dissolution of a marriage. At first appearing reserved， forced into neat six-line stanzas， these poems build emotional power as one reads. An intellectual acrobat who tosses foreign words and phrases about for sheer delight， Yenser is also a master of puns: "our last year was gone./ Well. It was academic anyway." The poems in the book's middle section disappoint， but a 12-part elegy to his former father-in-law， filling most of the final section， again displays the poet's mastery when tackling serial poems revolving around a still center. This book was selected for the Walt Whitman Award by Richard Howard， and it's easy to see why. --Rochelle Ratner， formerly Poetry Editor. "Soho Weekly News，" New YorkCopyright 1993 Reed Business Information， Inc.