The cluster of qualities that first strike the reader of Tom Disch's poems--robust skepticism and realism, urbane wit, rueful irony, formal elegance--has not characterized much post-war U.S. poetry.

By contrast these qualities have been repeatedly found together in post-war British poetry. Ever since the Movement--Philip Larkin, Kingsley Amis, Donald Davie (see Page 6), Thomas Gunn--took control in the early '50s, British expectations about poetry have been molded by these characteristics.

This is not simply a poetic but an attitude to life. As such it does seem peculiarly British and is linked to an empiricist attitude, a belief in common sense, common decency, a mistrust of systematic thinking, extremism, of emotional intensity. So poets who have stepped out of line have often been accused, by implication, of being un-British--this is partly what Larkin meant when, asked about Ted Hughes' "Crow," he replied: "Personally, I prefer Peter Rabbit."

So it's surprising to find Disch, an American poet, writing in a Movement way--though not so surprising that, as a result, he has been more warmly received in Britain than in the United States.

This kind of writing has a number of strengths. It's rarely pretentious, or obscure, or formless--all weaknesses to which American poetry is prone. It's usually intelligent and readable, and it's often funny. It has many of the strengths of the realist novel; it's especially good at narrative, at describing character and at reflecting on society--Hardy is an important ancestor.

In "The Rapist's Villanelle" Disch summons up an upper-middle class, cosmopolitan social milieu simply by noting the victim's "hand-knitted sweater from the Isle/ Of Skye, (her) apres-ski of bold chartreuse."

The rapist's state of mind emerges through the way the villanelle form frames his words. The lines, "She spent her money with such perfect style" and "I couldn't help myself; I had to smile" both appear four times. This repetition suggests how, to the rapist, the victim's compulsive shopping and his obsessive desire are linked--become somehow equivalent.

That the rapist makes this association reveals his cool depravity. This and the poem's formal elegance hint at violence lurking below the chic surface--what Harold Pinter has called "the weasel under the cocktail cabinet."