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Open Books: Event Archive
May 31, 2007 07:30 PM
JEAN-PAUL PECQUEUR
Jean-Paul Pecqueur's book The Case Against Happiness ($14.95 Alice James) is a collection of delightfully, sardonically funny poems concerned with the difficulty of finding joy while possessing a philosophical turn of mind. The
first poem begins, "The door to the Center for Educational Renewal is never
open. / This is not a metaphor." Several of the pieces find themselves in
flashy, hollow America -- "off-white and badlands- / pink strip malls spread
/ like a preprogrammed crime spree." Pecqueur's writing is often in service
of a lively, sinuous train of thought -- "military software shadow boxes /
with every third tank-like car. Where / oh where leads artlessly to my oh /
my Ohio, that Lebanon of the pastoral." His honed wit couples with a stream
of consciousness to make for a kind of hybrid of New Yorkers James Schuyler
and Woody Allen. Though he takes some pleasure in his grouchiness --
listening to radio news is "gathering fresh fuel for my daily outrages" --
he has, during one moment, a thought that "the only real justice is love,"
which he quickly dismisses as "just one burst of some chemical / not quite
eternal." His apparent belief in, and continual search for, the possibility
of a better world gives these poems a sweet foundation and touching
strength.
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