Whereas Erin Belieu's book. It was very pleasant to see former colleague Andrew Epstein's name in the acknowledgements, and among the few dedicatees. End of pleasantry.

There is more than a little Miss Parker in Black Box also a more than fashionable percentage of Plath; the abiding spirit, though, is the unappraisable Tennessee Williams. Belieu comes by it honestly, but surely the bit about reading O'Hara to her three-year-old was not intended to open up a dialogue with her reader. Nor the poem about the souvenir sex doll. There are genuine moments -- of world-weariness and vertigo. These feelings approach the adult quality so profoundly lacking from contemporary verse, but their sullenness is wearing. Too bad. Still, we know there will be more books. Here's hoping things look up.