In his third volume of poetry, Geography of the Near Past, Young is still in touch with the rhythmical luminosities of Dancing and The Song Turning Back Into Itself but the reach is broader: his wife's pregnancy, a visit to a friend in prison, a protest march, trips to exotic cities, a satire on other poets. The dance is deepening, not slowing, in the mind of this poet and novelist.

What most encourages—and sometimes stuns—the reader of Young's poetry is the imagery, which of itself colors out any number of nihilist platitudes scrawled on the walls of the modern soul…. What discourages this reader is the lack of discrimination on the poet's part. In many of the poems worn or careless phrases and lines link the truly valuable freight like so many empty flat cars…. To its credit, the book improves as it goes along. The...