The Daily Glance
Gina Myers' a model year contains a variety of forms, from list poems to poems in contemporary couplets to open form lyric pieces. The over-riding presence is sad but understanding--someone who has watched things collapse and just wants to continue. I can sense the New York School influence in her work, but she doesn't have the cockiness of those writers or the sneer of satire; in fact, some of these short pieces have moments of the mythic. Several poems struck me, such as the list poems about fear and "Perpetual Motion," yet the poem that stood out is "Saginaw." I liked it partially because I just recently visited Saginaw, Michigan, but beyond my visit, the poem touches on something that cities, especially those in the Rust Belt, have to deal with.
Dirty shopping carts
in dirty parking lots.
The future I was promised
enclosed here in this
brown paper bag.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Who has forgotten
their songs, their daughters?
Forget my dreams:
how things were
going to be different.
These lines could be used for many industry cities like Gary and Flint. They pose questions about how the U.S. is going to deal with its left behind history. What happens when the country of the future, of the frontier, has to deal with its dirty past to keep moving, when it can no longer ignore it?
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