The Daily Glance

Sandy McIntosh’s Cemetery Chess: Selected and New Poems is intelligent, funny, well-crafted, and just fun to read.  McIntosh’s work has been around in the background for me for quite a while.  I knew of it, but I did not know it well; thus, this book comes as a welcome introduction to the scope of his poetic arc.  His work is strikingly clear, but with a clarity that comes from a place that throws us off kilter, for it seems that he is looking at daily life with more insightful eyes than ours.  The poems are filled with places and people, especially artist and poets--Eileen Tabios gets her own poem!  

McIntosh’s poems are serious pieces that are not pretentious, just pieces from a sharp mind.  

1. Aunt Elizabeth didn’t believe in death.  “Just go up to the coffin and sprinkle

       water on his face.  He’ll wake right up.  You’ll see: they always do.”

The book is enjoyable and opens up its own space in literary history already populated with stories.