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Open Books: Event Archive
April 05, 2007 07:30 PM
RALPH ANGEL
Ralph Angel's latest collection, Exceptions and Melancholies: Poems 1986 -
2006 ($15.95 Sarabande), offers 35 pages of new poems and over 100 pages of
poems drawn from his three prior books. Mr. Angel's recent work is
mysterious and touching. He can write poems that seem to start afresh with
each successive line - "Like a ghost // one learns to say no / there's room
enough I assure you" -- giving the sense of the rapid pace of Los Angeles,
where he lives. He can also write with a grace and ease reminiscent of
William Carlos Williams, as with, "my love, please know / that I'm just a
little / out of practice." Mr. Angel has also recently published a
translation of Federico Garcia Lorca's _Poem of the Deep Song_ ($13.95
Sarabande), a poet who clearly appears to be among his influences. Finally,
it must be noted that Mr. Angel can be awfully funny, as in the terrific
beginning to his poem "A Rat in the Room" -- "What a guy goes through these
days / to get his uncle Leo to pass him a couple of lentils!"
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