FREE WILL

Using form not as a political gesture in and of itself, but as a means of clarifying dynamically complex politico-philosophical material, Watson concretizes ideas of language, identity, history and power. Watson, who is the literary manager for a Rhode Island theatre, never assumes a distinctly personal tone in these four long poems (three exclusive employing lowercase), often hitting the universalizing note of a Sophoclean chorus: "A person pretends to be a person, that overself as surrogate for the moment. The chorus populates a congested faith, each breath as self-mutilation. Now we can base our obsession on what someone else said: 'let this be that.' " The floating, center-justified octaves of "persuasion & judgment" find "whole will swallowed by eroding whisper." The poem "talk drum" tracks "the cloistered eye of heaven which calculates aggression in threads" with alternating verse stanzas and prose. The conventional quatrains of "tar box (strategy & ballads)" begin with the expansive and unpunctuated question "but what could we be" and proceed to tactically thread their way among fallen idols and idylls, until "we arrive at the present/ and immaculate sum-of-sums/ and change its name/ to that thing without a veil." Throughout, the book retains a level of power and intelligence that, like Kevin Davies's Comp., shows new directions for the poetics of political engagement. (May)