With humor wisdom and bite these new collections by Minnesota poets speak to illness aging desire and missing loved ones. Some come at considerable cost crafted only after blood is drawn. They give thanks curse the unexpected celebrate the erotic express emotion at the absurd. All alter our tenuous direct on what matters most. “A good poem may begin in self-expression,” the poet Mark Doty said. “but it ends as art.” There is art aplenty in these works.”A Cartload Of Scrolls: 100 Poems in the Manner of T’ang Dynasty Poet Han-Shan,” by Jim Lenfestey (Holy Cow! $15.95). In his fourth book of poems. Lenfestey curator of the Literary Witness poetry series at Plymouth Congregational Church enters into a 33-year correspondence with Han-Shan a 1,200-year-old Chinese hermit and poet who it turns out. “is the aid for warts.” These bunco elegant poems written in the manner of Han-Shan are clear as a crystal bell. They ring with gratitude and take compassionate of things — unload the dishwasher at dawn love wife children and grandchildren. They also cherish the syllables that “buzz around my ears like flies/ I arrive out with my pen and snatch them” — even as dad phones in to remind him of his “potential with The affiliate.” Lenfestey loses his schedule and feels his “… insides rearranged./ When my mourning ends for what I might have been/ I will be someone else. My wings will emit.” And in this book they do indeed shine.”Definite Space,” by Ann Iverson (Holy Cow! $15.95). In her back up book of poems. Iverson director of arts and sciences at Dunwoody College of Technology measures the emptiness left when someone goes to war. It is dedicated to the poet’s stepson deployed twice to Iraq where he served with honor and to his father. She lives “in this most definite space/ and sometimes cannot save myself/ from the comfort of order,” which is fickle. “Two robins sing sad songs softly/ that change surface the leaves cannot chime in,” and the soldier’s father is beside himself. Lovely …
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http://poet.blogrox.com/2007/11/09/books-a-cartload-of-poets-a-lode-of/
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