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New and Selected Poems

Marie Howe. Norton, $28 (160p) ISBN 978-1-324-07503-5

Howe’s bountiful fifth collection (after Magdalene) offers a crown of new poems to open selections from her quietly astonishing body of work. These new pieces showcase the poet’s characteristic gifts: unearthing the sacred in the everyday and conferring upon the ordinary its rightful aureole: “how small it is sometimes, this Now.” Powerful, career-long continuities surface (“it’s good to have a dog with you when you are practicing/ not being there: You don’t feel so all alone”). In addition to the singular, lyrical voice that distinguishes her earlier work (“the I that caused me so much trouble”), the poet opens into a planetary, even anthropogenic dimension: “We took of the earth and took and took, and the earth/ seemed not to mind.” The poems original to the collection subtly chart the writer’s coming into her full power: “Now you know what it is to be afraid,” she declares in the face of extinction, as prophet, witness, confessor, and guide: “You were once a citizen of the country called I Don’t Know./ Remember the boat that brought you here. It was your body: Climb in.” The unmistakable objects of Howe’s attention remain steadfastly present (“thing and spirit both: the real/ world: evident, invisible”), suffused by a tender doom. This is a necessary compilation for times of crisis. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 03/01/2024 | Details & Permalink

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Mirror Nation

Don Mee Choi. Wave, $25 (128p) ISBN 978-1-950268-93-1

The bracing third volume in Choi’s Korea and United States trilogy (after DMZ Colony) loosely centers on the Gwangju Uprising of May 1980, in which university students protesting martial law imposed by military dictator Chun Doo-Hwan were violently suppressed and up to 2,300 people were killed. Choi’s father, a photographer and cameraman, was present for the violence and chaos. At one point, Choi writes from his perspective, splicing the narrative with scans of his handwritten timelines. Choi quotes Walter Benjamin (“One of the great attractions of the travel scenes found in the Imperial Panorama was that it did not matter where you began the cycle”) as part of the spectacular mosaic of headlines and fragments she juxtaposes to place the events in a larger context of contemporaneous global neocolonial violence, including the 1980 Miami riots in response to the acquittal of four police officers who beat a Black man to death after a traffic stop. From Ethiopia to Israel, Nicaragua to Afghanistan, she ties headlines and fragments using the equal sign, which she refers to as “a syntax that enables multiple places and times to coexist simultaneously.” Choi skillfully illustrates the cyclical, endless nature of violence to more deeply understand her home, herself, and the world. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 03/01/2024 | Details & Permalink

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Acts

Spencer Reece. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $27 (128p) ISBN 978-0-374-10083-4

The excellent latest from Reece (The Road to Emmaus) is immersed in a faithful, but not unquestioning, lyricism, in part inflected by his life as a priest (“Still singing in my cell,” as he puts it). Having moved to Madrid, Reece suffuses the poems with Spain’s music and poetry, with allusions to Federico García Lorca and Antonio Machado running throughout. The country is itself one of the embodied figures of these poems: “Spain, you smell like cigarettes—/ generous, plump, never grumpy about sex.” Neither is the collection “grumpy about sex,” or love. It’s a carnally charged tussle between “unidentified loneliness” and “[t]he erotic barely contained.” “Whatever the question the answer is love,” Reece writes in the digressive, charmingly epistolary sequence “Letters from Spain.” Righteousness and puritanism are the enemy in these pages, and a leavening wit seeks to amplify, and deepen, an erotic of piety. Lit up by memorable phrases (“above me Christ/ sags in his candelabra of surrender” and “the chandelier of Europe lit with empty churches”), Reece’s spry musicality is amplified by his often plainspoken, pared-down syntax: “Longer I go fewer notes/ I need.” These poems are generously companionable hymns of delight in service. (May)

Reviewed on 03/01/2024 | Details & Permalink

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Phantom Captain

Kim Rosenfield. Fence, $18 trade paper (88p) ISBN 978-1-944380-27-4

Embarking upon a poetic quest through the human psyche, the speculative latest from Rosenfeld (after USO: I’ll Be Seeing You) is divided into six poems that plumb the existential depths of postmodernist seas, offering an avant-garde exploration of life’s waves: “thank you for joining me again/ in this interesting new/ life testing/ medium// I’m going to speak to you in an inaudible way// I hope this will relax you.” These pieces suggest their influences (Nietzsche, Kant, and Freud), while illustrating the quirkiness of the sublime through experimental forms and a stream of consciousness style. Weaving prose poems and haiku-like fissures and mostly resisting traditional structures, Rosenfield makes her interest in existence and social critique evident in poems that tackle Instagram and other societal conundrums, painting the world as a “shell shocked place” (from “It’s Been an Almost Hysterical Test of My Mettle”). The speaker acknowledges that “poetry is the best void for loneliness,” suggesting art is the best coping mechanism. While the fragmented structure might not appeal to all readers, those seeking a provocative exploration of existence and an idiosyncratic reflection on self-discovery will find this a welcome blend of philosophy and poetic expression. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 01/19/2024 | Details & Permalink

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The Gone Thing

Monica McClure. Winter Editions, $20 trade paper (96p) ISBN 978-1-959708-05-6

McClure (Tender Data) guides readers through a jarring and poignant critique of cultural and societal norms in her unrestrained second collection. Images shift from the starkly colloquial to the hauntingly lyrical: “Who doesn’t/ Want to feel horseradish vodka sizzling over an ice luge? I’m so/ Inundated with lilac promises of fame” (“Rising Furies”). The syntax of these poems flows from terse, fragmented phrases that capture fleeting moments of clarity to longer, winding sentences that mirror the labyrinthine paths of introspection: “When verses scan the sand like sulfur/ the air is limp/ It fans infections toward farmers/ who pipe slowly/ the only words they have” (“Paris My Daughter”). This shifting line structure is not merely a stylistic choice but a reflection of the collection’s emotional energies. Lines such as “Blessed are the crimes of the American poor” (“The Carrot and the Stick”) and “And then there are cops// Rich people/ helping poor people/ become acceptably poor” (“Sermon”) reveal a critical stance toward present inequities, urging a reevaluation of accepted values. This volume intimately and expansively weaves personal anecdotes with broader societal observations. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 01/19/2024 | Details & Permalink

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Postage Stamps

Jay Wright. Flood Editions, $18.95 trade paper (72p) ISBN 979-8-9857874-2-9

Wright’s powerful latest (after Thirteen Quintets for Lois) revels in the contradictions of language, mixing disparate philosophies and mythologies in a pressure cooker of lyrical skill. In lines that move nonchalantly between languages and cultures, Wright’s poems prod at the limits of rationality, proposing instead “a sign in flux” more adaptable to the experience of reality. While the scope of the cultural referents can feel overwhelming at times, the poems reward the attentive reader with many moments of epiphany; for example, Wright’s description of art’s awe-inspiring potency merges with the poet’s own creative impulse in the lines “We live astonished by music’s/ weight in fundamental motion,/ and the body’s apt invention/ of its meter, an eccentric’s/ just inscription.” Among the various mythic figures who roam these pages seeking connection are subtle allusions to African American and Afro-diasporic literary traditions that help ground the poems: “The mask lives a double life, shaken/ by a dry and falling body, the dearth/ of arresting sign that leaves no token.” This meticulous collection offers playful enlightenment to those who travel its labyrinths. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 01/19/2024 | Details & Permalink

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The Infinite Loop / El Lazo Infinito

Oneyda González, trans. from the Spanish by Eduardo Aparicio. Akashic, $18.95 trade paper (160p) ISBN 978-1-63614-143-5

This graceful bilingual English and Spanish collection by Cuban poet González (La Ciudad Promisoria) allows a unique comparison of diction and syntax across languages as it explores themes of pain, love, self-reflection, and hope. Divided into three sections—“The Loop,” “Facing the Mirror,” and “The Other and I”—the volume engages with light and darkness, joy, and seduction through lyrical and symbolic phrases: “The birth of light,/ calmness,/ forsakenness/ happen where I am.// It could not be simpler.// Here the flight:/ clarity and substance./ Him. He discovers my enthusiasm.” González blends sensory imagery with abstract ideas, creating a sense of depth and complexity throughout, inviting readers to contemplate the nuances of life and the beauty found in its simplest moments: “I appreciate this coffee and this silence” (“The Trains of Silence”). The collection’s bilingual nature and skillful English translations enrich the reading experience while bridging cultural and linguistic barriers. Readers will be struck by the universal appeal of González’s poems. (Dec.)

Reviewed on 01/19/2024 | Details & Permalink

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Lunar Solo: Selected Poems

Jules Laforgue, trans. from the French by Mark Ford. The Song Cave, $18.95 trade paper (172p) ISBN 979-8-9878288-2-3

Widely unknown in the English-speaking world, Laforgue (1860–1887) is exuberantly translated and contextualized by poet and academic Ford, who explains that the French poet is generally credited as having been the first to use free verse. Ford notes his overriding concern as translator was to create versions that register as effective poems (readers can compare the original French with the translation across each page). Laforgue’s work is suffused with drama and romance, but also quirky, tongue-in-cheek melodrama. In “Pierrots” (subtitled “a short but typical scene”), the heartsick speaker laments: “If only you’d seen me after our tiff! I wandered/ Around, distracted, in pain, moaning/ To the walls.” There are breathless poems about Sundays and the bleak, hopeless month of November: “Cloaked/ And scarfed is the lousy sun that lies across the hill’s/ Flank, in the gorse, this evening.” In a later entry, the poet describes a sun as white as a “gobbet of spit on the floor,” and a sky “where the wind drives/ Scattered squadrons of clouds towards their trans-/ Atlantic sheepfolds.” Laforgue’s vivid imagery and wild energy should not be missed. (Dec.)

Reviewed on 01/19/2024 | Details & Permalink

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Psyche Running: Selected Poems 2005–2022

Durs Grünbein, trans. from the German by Karen Leeder. Seagull, $25 (240p) ISBN 978-1-80309-279-9

Rendered in spikily musical tones by Leeder, Grünbein’s latest (after Mortal Diamond: Selected Poems) is full of difficult consolations and a sighing sort of absurdity. Like the poet himself, these poems originate “north of Bohemia, south/ of Greenland,” acting as guides to European history ancient and modern, as well as performing a “Philosophy/ in meter” (“Configured Night”). The speaker’s voice is thoughtful, witty, and at times despairing, operating in “ochre and terracotta tones.” There are echoes of Kurt Vonnegut in Grünbein’s sequence about the destruction of his native Dresden in WWII (“it arrives in style with ‘so it goes,’ ” he writes in “Porcelain: Poem on the Downfall of My City”). In “Footnote to Myself,” Grünbein discusses modern poetry’s “expanded repertoire of facial expressions.” In these terms, his is a uniquely expressive appearance, veering from the “banana republic of the real” and “the songs that mortality sings,” to writing on the oddities and quirks of forgotten regions, “a book of superfluous things.” These eloquent, angular poems are rich in thoughtful noticing and a refreshingly idiosyncratic unpacking of history, geography, and myth. (Dec.)

Reviewed on 01/19/2024 | Details & Permalink

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Life on Earth

Dorianne Laux. Norton, $26.99 (144p) ISBN 978-1-324-06582-1

With this spellbinding seventh collection, Laux (Only as the Day Is Long) brings to life the simple pleasures and small agonies of human existence. Many of the poems are odes praising a host of conveniences and delights—salt, WD-40, French toast. The latter entry doubles as a tribute to Laux’s Acadian ancestors and offers some of her most delightful imagery as she calls herself the “daughter/ of a people who refused to die: sacks/ of wheat on their shoulders, spoon/ in a belt loop, sugar sprinkled in a pant cuff,/ a sleeping chicken hidden under a coat.” The poem about Bisquick, meanwhile, doubles as an ode to Laux’s mother, of whom she writes frequently and tenderly throughout: “We’d wake/ to pancakes in the cast iron skillet,/ and it seemed she’d never slept,/ never stopped, eggs cracking open,/ spilling each whole yellow globe/ into a blue bowl.” In the quietly moving elegy “Winter Brother,” the poet finds comfort in imaging the constellation Orion as an emblem of her late brother, “who died far from home/ on a lonely road.” The occasional left-field entry, such as a poem imagining a sexual encounter between Ho Chi Minh and Mae West, keeps the reader on their toes. Laux makes the quotidian feel monumental in a way that is uniquely her own. (Jan.)

Reviewed on 01/19/2024 | Details & Permalink

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