In Katha Pollitt's work there is a continual counterpoint between romance and disillusionment, between transcendence and skepticism. In the fourth of "Five Poems on Japanese Paintings," "Moon and Flowering Plum," she reveals this dilemma…. (p. 171)

This is not Katha Pollitt's quandary alone but the mood of many poets as the eighties begin: they're not as optimistic as in the romantic sixties ("ya can do anything if your head is right"), but neither are they as cynical and detached as were the academic poets of the fifties. Katha Pollitt's reversals are not always from the sublime to the ridiculous: sometimes, as in "Nettles," she shows that the unattractive nettle can still nourish butterfly caterpillars. She carries this contrast between idealized and everyday reality further in another poem about a Japanese painting. "A Screen Depicting the Fifty-Four Episodes of the Tale of Genji on a Background of Gold Leaf." As...