The Daily Glance
JS van Buskirk's Tiny Bedtime Stories has been sitting on a shelf for the past few years mostly because I did not know what to make of it. The book doesn't look like your typical poetry book. It is half images and half short poems. The images are mostly old advertisements, and the poems are little story poems, bedtimes stories, though not necessarily meant for children.
An old man learns the device he
spent his life developing in secret is
well known and in common use, but
he regrets nothing.
Across the page from this is a poster for the Chicago World's Fair. I suppose the image goes with the poem because the World's Fair had something to do with invention. That said, sometimes the images seem to have a clear connection to the poems, and sometimes the connection, as with this one, seems tenuous.
Sailors on late night watch chat with
talking dolphins, learning much that
amazes them. They die happy old
men whom no one believes.
The language here is straight-forward, and the pieces are best enjoyed individually.
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