Books, Arts & Manners: Tex-Mex Mess

The Alamo: An Epic, by Michael Lind (Houghton Mifflin, 352 pp., $25)

WHATEVER strain of gargantuan vanity persuaded Michael Lind to oblige posterity and the world of letters with a retelling of the story of the Alamo in 6,006 lines of rhyme royal is worthy of some considerable respect; his poetry, alas, is not. In fact, the only interesting thing about it is the question it raises: How is it possible for someone almost entirely lacking in poetic talent or taste to style himself a latter-day Homer without rebuke from the culture at large? Then again, why not? What does the culture at large know of epic verse anyway? Mr. Lind might as well claim to be writing pastorals or odes or satires or haiku, for all that anyone but a few specialists knows to the contrary.

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James Bowman

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The Alamo: An Epic, by Michael Lind (Houghton Mifflin, 352 pp., $25)

WHATEVER strain of gargantuan vanity persuaded Michael Lind to oblige posterity and the world of letters with a retelling of the story of the Alamo in 6,006 lines of rhyme royal is worthy of some considerable respect; his poetry, alas, is not. In fact, the only interesting thing about it is the question it raises: How is it possible for someone almost entirely lacking in poetic talent or taste to style himself a latter-day Homer without rebuke from the culture at large? Then again, why not? What does the culture at large know of epic verse anyway? Mr. Lind might as well claim to be writing pastorals or odes or satires or haiku, for all that anyone but a few specialists knows to the contrary.