Books: Story Poems

OPUS 7—Sylvia Townsend Warner— Viking ($2).

JONATHAN GENTRY—Mark Van Doren —Boni ($2.50).

Many a U. S. reader found to his surprise that Stephen Vincent Benét's John Brown's Body was readable and even thrilling, though a poem and a long one. If you are one who cannot stomach left-wing lyrics or metrically muted cries of despair, you may well find one or both of these narrative poems as agreeable a surprise as John Brown's Body.

Sylvia Townsend Warner is a competent novelist, so when she turns her hand to verse you expect some salty characterization. She...