cover image Blindsided

Blindsided

. David R. Godine Publisher, $12.95 (80pp) ISBN 978-0-87923-956-5

Able to see the humor in any situation, Myers ( As Long as You're Happy ) delights in turning family life into a farce. In various poems, a first-person speaker fills up his children's pool and precariously sets it under a roof with no gutter just as it's about to rain, drags his reluctant wife to be photographed at a modeling studio that they later discover is about to go out of business and paints his kitchen cabinets a garish blue. Even when the speaker assumes a passive role, the lives of those around him resemble a black comedy: his son banging on a highchair reminds him of ``a prisoner who has lost the ability to speak.'' Another poem describes a man who dies just after he has found a way to make his glasses an asset to his appearance. Ultimately, the male voice in these poems is sexist, sophomoric and boastful, excusing the speaker's lust with ``Somehow it seems noble to be obsessed / by thoughts of furthering one's race.'' The poems are impressive at first--the speaker is believable if unlikable--but after 96 monotonous pages in precisely the same key, one recognizes a poet giving into his limitations. (Sept.)