Reviews for What Goes On: Selected and New Poems 1995-2009

The average rating for What Goes On: Selected and New Poems 1995-2009 based on 2 reviews is 2.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-08-17 00:00:00 Gary Conrad I love it when a poet can tell a story. He had me from the first poem, "Tucson," from the opening lines: A man was dancing with the wrong woman in the wrong bar, the wrong part of town. to the middle lines: I'd forgotten how fragile the face is, how fists too are just so many small bones. to the close: My friend said nothing's wrong, stay put, it's a good fighting bar, you won't get hurt unless you need to get hurt. Another poem has a dead-on analysis is the Olympic skaters Tonya and Nancy: One woman has nothing out of place as she slides into our living rooms. The other can't control her face. In a prose poem he captures the high school reunion: So interesting to see how character can overcome bone structure. Pretty, handsome, cute'how those attributes, those intimidations, once seemed permanent. No need to mark the many ways faces go bad. Or the sadness, for example, of remaining cute. He writes of a woman with cancer: we who had seen her truly alive and then merely alive, what could we do but revise our phone book, our hearts, offer a little toast to what goes on. or he observes the sexual act: perhaps the beautiful accident of her bra commingling with your sock on a bedpost, and just a stain or two to prove nothing like this could ever be immaculate, Jesus Christ having come involuntarily from your lips, or the transformation of New Jersey: When it became clear aliens were working here with their dead-giveaway, perfectly cut Armani suits, excessive politeness, and those ray guns disguised as cell phones tucked into their belts, I decided we had two choices: cocktail party to befriend them, or massive air strikes... As a college graduate he searches for a job: History major? the interviewer said, I think you might be good at designing brochures. I was. Which filled me with desire for almost everything else in the world. He writes of Glenn Gould phoning Barbra Streisand at 3 a.m., or of Jeanne Moreau calling Glenn Gould. He conducts an autopsy of Alan Ginsberg's dying words. He contemplates the love life of mermaids. I could go on. When he's good, he's really good.

Review # 2 was written on 2013-07-31 00:00:00 Zain Raza I got to page 132 of 195 but I just couldn't play along anymore. "....a succubus bitten moon followed me home last night...." no, I don't think so. Goodbye