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New Books - 04/02
_Steal Away: Selected and New Poems_ by C.D. Wright (Copper Canyon, $25
hardcover) Ms. Wright has been, and continues to be, one of the freshest
voices in contemporary American poetry. Intense, lyrical, sensual,
challenging, and off-hand; she writes like no one else. And this welcome
volume is very lovely.
_Dreams of a Robot Dancing Bee_ by James Tate (Verse, $23 hardcover) This
is a collection of 44 short stories by the master of achingly dry, comic,
and poignant poems and prose poems. Mr. Tate's talent for finding the
intersection of social pain and absurd humor is displayed here in spades.
How do we describe the story called "Eating Out of Mousetraps," which is
actually about a woman telling her wine-sipping friends about her
unhappiness with her AA partner? There's nothing like these tight gems.
_19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East_ by Naomi Shihab Nye
(Greenwillow, $16.95 hardcover) Ms. Nye's poems shine with her compassion
and imagination, and she has built quite a following because of this. The
poems here, 29 from previous books and 30 new ones, are located in the world
of Arabs and Arab-Americans. The poems are often domestic; they are
romantic, and at times sad and at other times joyous. Ms. Nye explores the
daily lives of a people rarely considered in the poetry of the western
world.
_Homesick_ by Roger Fanning (Penguin, $16 paperback) This is long-time
Seattle resident Roger Fanning's second book of poems, the first in many
years. His poems are charming, sometimes (but thankfully not often) ironic,
and with just enough chattiness to make them compulsively readable. He is
like a less arch Billy Collins; humorous, friendly, and a touch
self-deprecating. Mr. Fanning's tone invites the reader into a sort of
partnership which there is no reason to resist. (Look for notice of a
reading by Mr. Fanning in our next newsletter.)
_Music Like Dirt_ by Frank Bidart (Sarabande, $8.95 paperback) This slim
chapbook of new poems by the ever-intense Mr. Bidart finds him continuing
his mastery of the fractured, raw-felt lyric. One senses in Mr. Bidart's
poems the struggle to speak. And that act of struggle articulates feelings
of agony and relief in a way that clearer poems very often do not. His work
is not for everyone, but when you connect to one of his poems you find
yourself touched in a profound way rarely matched.
