Reverberations: Across the Shimmering Cascadas

``I circulate among languages, none of them my own, and when I write I am told, `not philosophy,' `poetry,' `. . . using language as it was not intended,' '' Allen ( Lesbian Philosophy: Explorations ) says. It's easy to understand the categorical confusion: few writers can mix poetry and philosophy with grace. Carrying lesbian feminism to the point of exhibitionism, she uses language as an investigation into self and other, searching for that point where two become one. But words don't seem to be her forte, as can be gleaned from the following: ``youyoush eiiheri iher sheyo ui.'' Other passages use cliches, such as ``herstory'' and variant spellings of women: wimmin, wimin, wimyn. Many passages contain Spanish words for no apparent reason except the unnamed lover or friend of the speaker is Spanish. Philosophy seems equally simplistic; the poet asks if readers have ``lived a great love?'' and refers to happenstance meetings as guided by astrological signs. Welcome exceptions are the few instances where philosophy fades (descriptions of girls building sandcastles or the final sequence remembering a friend's violent death); here imagery of the moment takes over, and the result is gracefully poetic. (Feb.)