WEE reviews April 28, 2006

Haircut by Henri Cole

Julie: I should hate this poem. I should. But I don't. I like everything about it, from the diction to the images to the spacing to the linebreaks. No, this isn't earth-shattering, but it's simply perfect for a sunny Friday in April when my sinuses are the size of Gibraltar and my week has been just short of entirely crappy. Some poems catch you at just the right time, and this one caught me today when I needed it. I'm not going to reread it soon, perhaps in a month or two, when it won't hurt me if I don't like it any longer. Today, though, it makes me happy.

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The Professor's Lover by Victoria Chang

Julie: This poem nearly gets away from Chang a few times, but she reins it in and brings it to a satisfying close. The voice is a good one, though some of the questions it posed didn't really interest me. No, if you offered your eyes to me I'd shriek and run away. Fast. The two forces in the poem action/imagery and contemplation are at odds. I preferred the imagery side, which is par for my course, and I thought the structure of the poem really helped make this worth reading. The choppy sentences nestled in more-than-bitesized strophe gave a feeling both of directness and of expansion. I was tugged along, knowing this narrator had more to say.

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Special by James Grinwis

Julie: After yesterday, this poem is nothing but disappointment for me. I'd be interested to learn from the editors at No Tell what their method is for deciding which poems come where in the week. Not that I'm quibbling. This is a Friday poem, in a way, a getaway day poem. But something in me got a little smushed.