May Swenson is a young poet who first came to book in a Poets of Today volume. Now she has a new collection all by herself, A Cage of Spines. She is a devilishly clever technician, and the book fairly buzzes with variety. What a show-off! For much that she does is variety for its own sake, not functional (as in Cummings). Tricks, as in the unreadable poem on Frost, can kill a poem with selfconsciousness. Mere stunts in poetry are basically frivolous. And we are all wearied of ladies who can't write exactly like Marianne Moore but try over and over for her exactitudes in descriptions of birds and animals. And yet there are admirable poems in this book when Miss Swenson just quiets down: poems such as "Her Management" and "A Haunted House" and the charming "The Centaur," and many passages of intensely lively, beautifully managed concentrations. Only a fine poet can do this:

I see the pigeons print
a loop in air and, all
their wings reversing, fall
with silver undertint
like poplar leaves, their seams
in the wind blown.

That's an ear. The real thing. The thing you have or don't. The thing that cannot be taught or learned. And I trust Miss Swenson unlearns her gamey ways and relies on her genuine individuality.