WEE reviews May 21, 2006

Human Terms by Kathleen Lynch

Julie: A week or so back, I commented that I find themes of alienation incredibly depressing. They also frighten me. In this poem, it's an albino calf, and I spent the poem waiting for the horrible thing to happen to the misfit. In a way, my relief when I finished the poem makes me delighted to recommend it. By the same token, I recognize my own freaky paranoia, that I'm the one who brought those nasty expectations to the table. Normal people might read this and never feel the enormous tension and release that I felt. In any case, despite my barely restrained fear, I enjoyed the poem. I can't unread it, or partially unread it to tell you if I liked it halfway through. I also can't believe I'm attempting to explain the stupidity of my own brain.

                We can't help
wanting to be the story.

I am so busted.

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A Thrush by Utamaro by Eamon Grennan

Julie: Strangely, today's poems remind me of each other, despite very different sensibilities coming into play. This poem brings the pressure of prose to bear. Something about prose lineation forces a poem to be read in a chunk rather than slowly. I don't savor prose poems, at least on the first read. I consume them whole. Then, like the thrush, I wait until the dust settles before deciding anything. Yes, I am mixing metaphors like mad. Sue me. There is an urgency to this poem, borne by the structure--a chunkiness and a heft that pleases me. It didn't involve the tension of the first poem, but both deal with alienation, with waiting for a great change. Fitting that I was feeling alienated and now feel that something was waiting for me.