These poems speak to and about the Great Crash of 2009, or don't speak of it, as in the case of Barbara Crooker's "The Stock Market Loses Fluidity," where what's liquid is "this sunlight pouring down / from the west, from the great glass jar of the sky," and where "the bear's fat layer is its IRA."
Each poet interprets the theme in her/his own way, as in Kristin Roedell's "Fifteen and Fifty," where the "unending rooms" of adolescence dwindle down to "the last room, this one" as middle-age looms, and Nick Lantz's humorously ruthless parody of a Rumsfeld press conference:
I look out and I see too many
people and too few, which is a different
way of saying
the same thing, which is a way
of saying I’m tired
of saying the same thing, which is a way
of saying I find no evidence
of change, which is a way
of saying that even
people and too few, which is a different
way of saying
the same thing, which is a way
of saying I’m tired
of saying the same thing, which is a way
of saying I find no evidence
of change, which is a way
of saying that even
decline can be a kind of steadiness.
It's a wonderful time in our history to pick up a book of poems, but if you want to join in the effort to cut back on clear cutting, as well as reduce your own consumption, let us go then, you and I, to the logical outcome of Gutenberg's wildest dreams.
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2 comments:
Hey, you forgot to mention your own poem in there, Martha, which I came across only by chance! I enjoyed it very much. Loved that last line.
I am not much for direct tooting, but thanks.
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