| Description |
This collection of poetry can best be described as a text;ual triptych with each "panel" bearing a tonal quality that marks it from the others. Because so many of these poems throughout the collection share phrasal qualities and a common lexicon, the division between sections warrants merely a blank page-a visual rest or moment of silence. The first one-third (or panel) of the collection is front-loaded with Partial History, which introduces the reader to rapid shifts of form, voice, and perspective. It also gives the reader a sense of the thematic concerns of the collection: the disenfranchised, the language of the social (work) world versus and including the language of art. The following poems move into the particular world of visual art as it rests against the natural world-in this case, a natural world that is often extreme. The center panel of his text;ual triptych is more concerned with the ways in which intimate connections are made (or missed) and the position of the woman (as actor/speaker rather than-or perhaps in addition to-subject) becomes a central concern. These poems, as a unit, feel most like they are willing to look directly at the reader and engage language as one form of intimate connection. Finally, panel three becomes the "dark night of the soul" of this collection. This segment is aware of the heavy-handedness of its despair and the self-consciousness of the post-modern sufferer, but the crux of the section lies in psychic suffering. The poem, Wind Up World, revisits the language of social work/psychiatry/psychology and the disconnect between that lens and the eye of visual art. |
