Speculative Music

This debut is, on one hand, a bag of tricks and conceits, wherein the speaker—playful, dishonest, and a tad morose— moves his way through the rooms of ordinary life with a bent of vision just-so off normal. On the other, it’s a book of simple, highly accessible verse, even if the turns Dolven takes surprise and jitter. These 38 poems (and one short libretto) are by those turns jokes, fables and proverbs, stories and anecdotes, and, most of all, tricks of narrative, where Dolven’s unmistakable self-questioning, dark-humored voice can’t help but often shine through. Often the reader is addressed directly: “Don’t be naïve. The poem is my hand… how your mouth moves like that when you read.” “I do hope you find this interesting.” And just as often, Dolven moves to larger statements, exhibiting an existential darkness that can be either humorous—“and here’s the thing, the telephone./ You say you’re coming? Hear, hear!/ You say you’re leaving? There there./ I still can’t hear you—damn this thing—// Hello? Hello? Am I still there?“—or dead serious: “Each thing makes its own wild cry./ Who thought, so many kinds of throat. / Under pressure all confess/ I never knew what I was for.” (Aug.)