From the Iron Chair: Poems

In this promising first book, winner of the 1991 Walt Whitman Award, Glazner assesses the complexities of loss. In meditative poems where nature anchors what we know of reality, he suggests that life's meaning exists to link memory with perception. A solitude evoked by the landscapes of Texas and the American West works its way into some of the poems. In others, insight is instead set against a social landscape: ``I let the ghostly / starlight-whitened dust of exploded rooms / shine onto me like any other / blameless thing.'' Glazner turns to nature or the spiritual realm to find terms of praise, asking, in ``The Metaphysician's Weekend,'' ``Are we the heirs / the old ones built for, tiny and alive, / our breath rising into a hull / of symbols?'' Where the poet falters, his language fails to carry freshness or edge--as when, in an untitled work, ``the silences at night/ pressed like faceless presences against the windows.'' But with Glazner, faltering is rare. (May)