Open Books: Events
December 12, 2008 07:30 PM
CODY WALKER
From its rueful opening -- “Because we don’t talk about how we feel, / The stars stay lit and islands keep afloat” -- to a sweet closing series of imagined letters to Whitman from a grandson, Shuffle and Breakdown ($14.95 Waywiser), Cody Walker’s first collection, jolts and entertains. Walker turns a razor wit on himself and others, sometimes at once -- “I was between jobs in the way that Catholics are between Messiahs.” In this frolicsome blast of satire, sarcasm, rage, and sadness, his stance is that of a classic court jester, taking on heads of state, as in “The Cheney Correspondence (Selected),” cultural conventions, and his own broadly theatrical self. This is an unusual book; the wide array of forms, several of the comically snappy variety, read quickly but offer a myriad of depths.
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