cover image The Man Who Grew Silent

The Man Who Grew Silent

Jim Peterson. Bench Press (OR), $0 (87pp) ISBN 978-0-930769-08-6

This ordinary first collection articulates painful issues that hunger for resolution: the persona's absent father, unstable mother, the wounding isolation of his youth. Peterson aptly captures the premature wisdom of a child who understands the dysfunction of his family; the poems project a tone of steely resignation, of imperative acceptance. But these pieces do not probe deeply: questions are framed but not answered, or the focus shifts to distract both speaker and reader from a futile pursuit of satisfaction or solace: ``I have to get up / and walk into the woods / to find some air with enough bite / to chase my heart / back into its silent cave.'' The occasional transcendence of this cautious stance, with an attendant attempt to accommodate the restive combination of love and disappointment, proves moving: ``I never did know how to say / That somehow you were beautiful to me, / Though I saw it all and heard it all.'' (June)