SOURCE: Plumly, Stanley. A review of The Zodiac, by James Dickey. American Poetry Review 6, no. 4 (July 1977): 42-3.

In the following unfavorable review, Plumly asserts that The Zodiac is “overwhelmed by its own ambition.”

James Dickey ends his twelve-part, twelve-tiered poem of The Zodiac with a kind of nautical prayer.

                              Oh my own soul, put me in a solar boat.                               Come into one of these hands                               Bringing quietness and the rare belief                     That I can steer this strange craft to the morning Land that sleeps in the universe on all horizons                               And give this home-come man who listens in his room                               To the rush and flare of his father                     Drawn at the speed of light to Heaven Through the wrong end of his telescope, expanding the universe … 

This moment, almost an interlude in spite of its conclusive position, suggests not only a rest from the labors of a long...