The Lions

In his second collection of poems, Peter Campion writes about the struggle of making a life in America, about the urge 'to carve a space' for love and family from out of the vast sweep of modern life. Coursing between the political and personal with astonishing ease, Campion writes at one moment of his disturbing connection to the public political structure, symbolized by Robert McNamara (who makes a startling appearance in the title poem), then in the next of a haunting reverie beneath a magnolia tree, representing his impulse to escape the culture altogether. He moves through various forms just as effortlessly, as confident in rhymed quatrains as in slender, tensed free verse. In "The Lions", Campion achieves a fusion of narrative structure and lyric intensity that proves him to be one of the very best poets of his generation.