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Open Books: Events
September 26, 2006 07:30 PM
SHANNON BORG & STAN SANVEL RUBIN
Corset ($17 Cherry Grove), Shannon Borg's first collection of poetry,
is a richly sensual book. Her poems present reflections on sexuality,
lyrical tellings of family stories, and fanciful, dreamy meditations on life
near, and on, water. A jaunty freedom, which seems to flow from a hardened
romantic sensibility, infuses much of her work. "He: just what is it you do?
/ . I don't know, does / doing matter? I velvet and I diamond. I smoke / and
ice." Her lines can have a Mobius strip quality, as in "The willow is bare
and the sky is full of willows." And, while characters have prominence in
many of her poems, Ms. Borg is also attentive to the music of language,
featuring regular rhyme schemes in some of these poems.
Stan Sanvel Rubin won the Barrow Street Press Poetry Prize for his third
collection of poetry, Hidden Sequel ($14.95). His varied poetry includes
short lyrics that read like demi-odes, including several imaginative studies
of methods of death (or murder?). Another series features what read like
riddles for punctuation marks -- he writes of the colon, "the cat lies on
its side, peering at you.." Among Mr. Rubin's concerns we find the question
of the purpose of art ("if you think you love justice, / poetry may be only
/ a way of despairing") and the situation of the dead ("laid here, suddenly
/ tribeless, anonymous, without regret"). Mr. Rubin's tone throughout is
forthright and personable. Spending time with his poetry is a pleasure.
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