Slavitt's sentences are so unburdened by the trivial or any kind of distraction, so transparent, that it would be too gross even to say that they are like angels in the sky. Because they don't just hang around in the sky like angels they are the sky. They are not merely fluent, though fluency is hard to come by and something to be treasured they flow as unhaltingly as a creek or waterfall. If I compare Slavitt's sentences to natural phenomena, it may be because he himself is rather a natural phenomenon a man who writes easily, copiously, and beautifully. Kelly cherry, author of A Kind of Dream He is an extraordinarily learned writer, intimate with the best literature of the Western tradition from the poets of the Greek Anthology to the contemporary poets whose translations he has edited for the Pennsylvania series of Greek tragedies and comedies. None of it is lost on him. The great works have worked upon him, and this is one of his means of achieving greatness. Daniel Mark Epstein, au