The Park

The atmospheric second book from Freeman (Maps) is mostly set in and around a Paris park he frequents. The park accepts what enters: animals who “don’t need to know/ it’s a park” and humans, who inhabit the “park beneath the park,” a place in the mind where one can feel alone among others. As in any city, unfathomable wealth brushes up against poverty, despair, and violence; homeless lurk in the shadows, and “almost all statuaries [are] killers.” The lover of parks can’t forget the sorrow the park is meant to soothe. Returning from a trip to a war zone, the speaker is too disturbed to enter: “I walk its perimeter in a rage, joggers/ and toddlers, lovers, legs entangled.” Freeman uses very short lines that can seem over-pruned; contrastingly, the longer lines of what resemble prose poems pack more force: “On the edge of Jardin du Luxembourg nightjars fret/ the dark, shrikes pace the grounds, that fierce khanjar between the eyes.” These meditative poems offer a thoughtful exploration on the contradictions and connections formed in public spaces. (May)