Mimer

In his fourth book, Phillips (These Indicium Tales) creates for readers a sensation of being presented with an exhibit of assemblages in a modern art gallery, going so far as to include an author's statement with the book's press sheet. Following loosely in the tradition of Marcel Duchamp's turning a urinal on its back and calling it a fountain, Phillips offers poetic objects that on the surface appear to be something entirely different than what they claim to be. What that identity may be, however, remains rather obscure. There is a feeling that something has been withheld or, more accurately, erased. Despite the vagueness, the poems seem to want meaning to be gleaned. Here, "One thinks a tree or sees a tree and has tree in the text, tree of predictables." And somehow that tree means something despite the clear desire for the tree to just be a tree. If this were more traditional L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poetry the meaning would be in the sounds and looks of the words. But Phillips dares us to find more%E2%80%94"By lips, lips by moon lit"%E2%80%94though he shies away from digging in and delivering any deeper meaning. Like a lot of language experiments, these poems are fleeting and slide away as soon as they are finished. (Jan.)