About the Size of It Book

As Barbara Guest's style becomes more and more experimental with each collection, I've stopped trying to offer any kind of commentary. Following the absence of any new collections in the 1980s, her return with the minor collection Musicality (1988) (a major departure from a style that was already preoccupied with experimentation and innovation), the regression of the slightly more accessible Fair Realism (1989) (although the term doesn't exactly apply to Guest, "accessible" should be taken relative to the poet's other works, rather than the works of other poets), and then a return to the experimental form of Musicality's poetics with the major collection Defensive Rapture (1993). What a revelation! The form explored by Guest in Musicality , Defensive Rapture , and Stripped Tales leaves me speechless. For this reason I must resort to quoting passages at length. Suffice to say that I am awed by Guest's entire body of work, but particularly her work post-1980s. I could easily go on singing her praises, but I would prefer that her work speak for itself...

touched naught




herself the coronet


being gleamy





bodie of water and uxorious


a bodie

not luxury

a bodie








not imperial



a guise

(if flat noise intrudes)


evanescence






protects (and)






(may come to adore her)

the white heaven



uxorious







(with) a slow delicacy





lente delicata - ;



(thereafter)

- Finally, to the Italian Girl