The Daily Glance

Thomas Fink's Joyride is distinguished from other poetry collections immediately because of its forms.   In just flipping through the book before reading, I thought the forms looked interesting, for they range from hay(na)kus to shaped poetry, and the shapes are fascinating in themselves (I'm not going to try to replicate them here).  The "Goad" series look like slightly misshaped U's.  The "Home Cooked Diamond" pieces seem to have a motion across the page like rain (Yes, they remind me in form a little of Appollinaire's "Il Pleut").  It's hard to imagine a lyric voice that could inhabit such forms, but there is one here.  "That isn't my face.  I'm an old lady, close to a soup person, and it doesn't matter."  This line is a very clear, straight line before the interpretation begins, but this collection also contains lines that play with meaning making: "On-line facts burping forward.  Omniscient fragments.  Dreambait, jailboat, rippling heads."  What exactly goes with what here?  Are the fragments related to the facts burping foward?  Is the dreambait?  Is the jailboat?  What exactly is a jailboat?  In other words, this collection is rich with interpretative directions and styles.  I can easily get lost in single lines.  For example, the line from above, "That isn't my face."  This line begins the poem.  So is "that" another part of the body?  Is it someone else?  The next sentence is "I'm an old lady," so what is the story we have jumped into here?  Thomas Fink is not an old lady.  So who is and who is pointing out her face?  This makes for fascinating reading.