The Daily Glance
Mairéad Byrne's Talk Poetry is a fun book to read. That might sound like an odd beginning to a glance, but most poetry books are not necessarily fun to read. I enjoy them, and they feel important in the grand scheme, but I don't feel as compelled to read them through the late night hours as I do a great novel or a good film**. Byrne's book touches on all sorts of topic, and she's humorous and insightful. Take the first lines of "Chiasmus:"
When you marry & divorce your dreams get mixed up. You wanted an over-stuffed leather living room set and next thing you know you're heading an expedition to the South Pole and making a pretty good fist of it.
Or, take the first lines of "Baking Soda:"
Baking soda is good for just about everything. I think we should try it in the War Against Terrorism. I heard a guy on the radio, William Odum, who used to be a General in the U.S. Army. He said you couldn't have a War Against Terrorism. . . . The NPR headline said: General Odum names the problem. Well I'm naming the solution: Baking Soda.
With the first lines of "Chiasmus," I just feel like saying, "That it. That's divorce," but ultimately, these prose poems are more complicated than they first seem and require a more in-depth response from the reader.
Overall, I enjoy the brash playfulness of this book. Byrne pokes fun of her adopted America, but she even has a poem titled "Three Irish Poets" in which she makes a case for putting herself in an anthology of Irish poets based on her being able to be categorized as three different types of poet.
**I typically like to hang out in the late night hours with poets rather than others, which makes me wonder how much the cult of poetry persona enters into my evaluations of poetry. Do I like Keats because I'm an objective reader of his wonderful work or because it's Keats, the poet whose name is "Writ in Water" and whose grave site I visited in Rome when younger?
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