CRICKET NEVER DOES

Livingston (B Is for Baby, 1996, etc.) presents poems using the traditional Japanese forms of haiku and tanka in a seasonal array, accompanied by de Kiefte's equally spare pen-and-ink drawings. ``Not wishing to stop/his chirping the whole night long,/Cricket never does'' is the piece that gives the collection a title. From such deceptively simple lines young poets may apply themselves to mastering this economic form of expression, for the examples in Livingston's slim volume set a standard. From the witty (``Now that Christmas is/over, poinsettias are/busy dropping leaves'') to the startling call to the imagination (``Close your eyes! Feel the/pale eyeballs of a dead cat . . . /two peeled purple grapes'') and the impressionistically evocative (``Floating in by way/of last night's late weather news . . . /a piece of lost storm''), there are constant flashes of the poet's vision, insight, and conviction. (Poetry. 10-14)