The Daily Glance: Selected Poems & Poetics Series

Tom Fink's Selected Poems & Poetics Series brings together many of his best pieces and showcases the range of his work over the years.  Some of the pieces that I love like the Yinglish Strophe series and his wild shaped pieces from Joyride appear along with the haibun/hay(na)ku mixes of The Dust Bowl Intimacies.

Fink's poems make the reader question how to read.  Take "Goad 5."

Do you read left to right across the page?  That seems to make sense, except the piece has a design which seems to suggest that one should follow it down and around.  And why is there a shape?  Why is there space in the middle of the poem?  Fink's poems, not just this one, make you question your reading process while at the same time pushing you off in new directions.  For example, the Home Cooked Diamond series reminds me of rain, and that makes me think of Apollinaire's "Il Pleut," yet Fink's poems are on a completely different topic.

All in all, I'm very happy to see that Fink has published a selected.  I hope it introduces new readers to his work and makes people look back over his collections and realize how amazingly good they are.

(This painting is not in the book.  It's on a shelf next to me as I write this blog post, but it's called "Burrito Imbalance 7," and it connects to a series from the book.  And I just want to post it!)