Erasures

<P>"e;When history proves useless and consensus chimerical,"e; Donald Revell has written, "e;the poet's necessity is invention, and this does a lot to explain our century's preference for revision over mimesis."e; For Revell, The disruptions of this century have destroyed old illusions of historical continuity: "e;The consolations of history are furtive,/ then fugitive, then forgotten."e; Invoking such contemporary events as the collapse of communism and the end of the Cold War, he seeks to integrate the political with the personal in a search for new paradigms of value and honor.</P>