The Daily Glance

Judith Goldman's l.b.; or, catenaries is insightful, quirky, funny, and brilliant.  She changes language registers like clothing: "I have DECREED not to sing in my cage," "I am gray, like ash / Please keep your receipts."  These poems are in dialogue with myriad other sources, from other poems to newspeak.    Some of the references are obvious, such as "The Waste Line," but I often found myself wondering if I was missing a reference.  I suspect these links are behind the title's "catenaries."  Beside being multi-referential, these poems work over myriad themes.  Numerous poems deal with gender and identity.  Some deal with poetry itself, such as "weak messianic power," which in a circuitous way explores major topics in contemporary poetry debates.  My favorite pieces are the ones where it feels like the guard is down.

tore
my face off and

ate it


stupid blunder



hardly recognize myself

This poem could be about gender and identity, but what most strikes me about these lines is an ordinary act highlighted--yes, I think this act of tearing "my" face off is common.

I suspect that I will be reading through this book over and over again in the coming months.