Pretending to be asleep

Mr. Davison's third collection--brief cerebral poems mainly dealing with the ""outrage and the dread"" of death in life. Davison's man of straw, the ""Plausible Man, "" taking shape from circumstances and social confluence, casts no shadow, and it is this non-existence of contemporary man that the poet attempts to exorcise as ""life stiffens and keeps its distance."" Davison's verse itself--with a kind of Midtown urbanity--also keeps a careful distance from the gutsy, rampaging line and experimentation of most new poetry. No vanguard poetry reader will stand for: ""It shuns me now that sometimes did me seek, "" even as a quip. However, there are those who like their poetry cool, mildly stimulating and not particularly involving.