The Daily Glance
Brenda Coultas' A Handmade Museum is a book of mostly prose poems that shift in content from New York, specifically the Bowery, to rural Indiana, the place of her youth. The pieces pick up fragments from American life as they move. They are full of observation and personal commentary. Interestingly, she talks about film and dumpster diving so much that they seem to become symbolic of her poetic, i.e. she is making a documentary about her life which also includes American history.
Blackened tea kettle like one I have at home, couch with living man, eyes closed,
his dog and runny dog shit on sidewalk. Cardboard boxes, lamp shade, the filter basket of a drip-o-lator, a wooden serving tray with loose bottom.
It's easy to like this book because so much is picked up in her journey from city to country. Odd little stories pop up (like the nude farmers on combines), and the reading process is like being in a museum walking from one object to a completely different new one.
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