SIR,—In his review of Robert Lowell's new book of poems
Life Studies in your issue of May 1, Mr. Kermode shows himself sadly blind to a new and exciting way of writing poetry.. He says that 'it seems On be slack tide with Mr. Lowell' and talks of
`superior doggerel' when discussing a book which overflows with skill and creative vitality. Mr. Lowell has burst out of the prison of an impressive but highly artificial style and has achieved the kind of fresh, immediate language which appears too rarely in current verse. Few poets alive can write as directly and as beautifully as this:
I myself am hell, nobody's here—
only skunks that search in the moonlight for a bite to eat. They march on their soles up Main Street: white stripes, moonstruck eyes' red fire under the chalk-dry and spar-spire of the Trinitarian Church.
—Yours faithfully, EDWARD LUCIE-SMITH, PETER PORTER 24 Sydney Street, SW3
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