SOURCE: "Accepting the Inevitable," in Times Literary Supplement, No. 3948, November 25, 1977, p. 1381.

In the following excerpt, Ewart assesses the themes, poetic diction, and imagery of Rumours.

Rumours is Seamus Deane's second book. The simplicity of the equivalents invoked (Governmental kindness=school milk=cold, inhuman) marks it as not very sophisticated—though none the worse for that. He uses the unrhymed lyric mostly but also, not quite so successful, the spasmodically rhyming lyric. Poems about his relationship with his father ("The Birthday Gift" for example) are some of the best. The language is apt but sometimes on the edge of rhetoric ("Little phoenix. The cold ash / Of your feathers holds no spark / On which I may breathe") and sometimes almost over the edge ("And came into the light their grooms / Blood-stained from their honeymoons"). Potent images are within his grasp—"The steeple of slamming iron let fall / Delicate ikons of...