cover image Rain

Rain

Jon Woodward. Wave Books, $14 (74pp) ISBN 978-1-933517-14-8

Woodward's second collection is a poetic diary or day-to-day travelogue shaped by a rigid formal device: a continuous series of unpunctuated long sentences are set in five-word lines in three five-line stanzas per page with only occasional exceptions. Spoken in an endearing, companionable voice, these poems-or sections of a long poem-meditate on the most ordinary of daily happenings. The book begins mid-sentence with a gesture of assured intimacy: ""in spite of which it's/hard to imagine it all going to shit."" Woodward's sensitivity to line breaks and fondness for conjunctions keeps the rhythm lively. Rain becomes the central metaphor for the book and a shaping formal device:, ""it's that/honest moment before the orchestra tunes itself/although much longer in duration/the instruments join in and/fall away as many times/as time will allow for/the droplets arrive at the/faces of you and me."" Readers might wish for more of the mischievousness that occasionally graces the poems, but this book is impressively captivating, considering that nothing much happens. Woodward (Mister Goodbye Easter Island, 2003) notes that tulip petals, after a while, go ""lazy and strange."" He waits for his songs on the jukebox. He sees the kind of hubcaps that ""continue/to spin when the car comes/to a stop."" The people that appear here are rarely surprised and repeat versions of ""the seven/ basic conversations."" Each small detail is noticed, proclaimed, discussed and ultimately exalted.