Sapphics and Uncertainties: Poems 1970-1986

Sapphics and Uncertainties contains Tim Steele's first two collections of Poetry, "Sapphics against Anger and Other Poems" and "Uncertainties and Rest." It's a slim volume of intelligent poetry written in meter and form. This collection, much like the lates one "Color Wheel", shows why Steele is considered one of the best poets writing formal verse. Every line, every word is well thought out. Steele is one of the poets that should be on your shelf.

Outstanding effort by one of the best poets using rhyme and meter today. Comparing Mr.Steele to Gjertrud Schnackenberg,Dana Gioia,Robert Mezey,Greg Williamson,et al shows him in an extremely bright light and good company. The rhythm of his poetry moves and the impassioned messages are moving as well. Here is a sampling to whet the appetite:'We enter life and thus inherit/The Kingdom of the human voice./ The Word is Word because we share it./Wonder encourages our choice/To sort out life's conflicting data,/To come to terms with its traumata,/To shape ourselves to nothing less/Than reasoned self-forgetfulness./For years we've traded rhyme and measure,/And if our poems are books today,/It is in hopes that others may/Take from them solace,sense,or pleasure,/ Though years pass with accustomed speed/And though the times we shared recede.'Another favorite is about Luther at Wartburg,1521-22 (excerpt) 'Odd,how his genius courts expectancy,/And views life as a text it's read./Yet others,seeking God in all they see,/Not finding Him,will claim He's dead,/Or will descry false gods when history slips/Into a fraudulent Apocalypse.'A great epigram that clinches the book for any reader/reviewer: 'Beethoven's 9th at the Hollywood Bowl': The chorus sings, musicians play,/ But on a stage so far away,/ It is as if we strain to hear/ The 1824 premiere.Get your hands on anything by Mr. Steele, such as Color Wheel and his prose explanation of meter and verse 'All the Fun's In How You Say a Thing'. Enjoy!

Timothy Steele, in terms of his command of meter and rhyme, wit and irony, powers of observation and restraint, is the finest of the New Formalist poets. My only complaint with his work is that I get a strong sense of deja vu when reading it -- sometimes I think I'm reading Richard Wilbur instead. (Of course, Richard Wilbur is hardly a bad model.) Steele writes almost entirely in meter and rhyme and is the most competent poet featured in the "Rebel Angels" anthology.