The poems in Bells in Winter, interspersed with prose, are of several kinds: philosophical, science-oriented, historical, surreal, phantasmagoric, satirical, Western American or Eastern European in their landscapes. Christianity and war hover in the background; not infrequently, the setting is academia, with its own little wars. At times, this is pleasant enough middle-of-the-road poetry…. [One poem, "Ars Poetica?",] has the urbane tone of a civilized man speaking to his equals, but there is not much real poetry in it: sophisticated conversation must, to rise into poetry, become fiercely emblematic, unexpectedly archetypal. (pp. 49-50)

At other times, the tone is more visionary: "We were flying over a range of snowpeaked mountains/And throwing dice for the soul of the condor./—Should we grant reprieve to the condor?/—No, we won't grant reprieve to the condor./It didn't eat from the tree of knowledge and so it must perish." This, like...