Come on All You Ghosts Book

I'm so torn about this collection. Zapruder reads like a hip John Ashbery with heart, but the same things that often frustrate me about Ashbery frustrate me about Zapruder -- a near fetishistic need to jarringly juxtapose high and low diction, switch registers and voices seemingly on a whim, and a deliberate attempt to obfuscate, sacrificing heart and clarity for a more formal representation of what it means to be alive in post-modern America. Whereas Ashbery uses erudite allusions to French literature, or classical painting, Zapruder references pop culture, science and technology to communicate his vision of 21st century America. Still, at the heart of these often complex poems lies a very traditional heart: love, death and the inevitable passage of time are common themes. His final poem, a five movement elegy for, among others, David Foster Wallace and his father, is a powerful plea for art in the service of memorializing and survival.