Daily Glance: Susan Lewis' State of the Union
Susan Lewis's State of the Union is a collection of prose poems that is full of energy. Often when I read prose poem collections, I cannot tell why the poet chose the form. Here, the form is essential. Lewis uses the form to gather speed and quirky intimacy. The titles are connected to the first lines, so it feels like we are being sweep through the poems.
She Tried (1)
to internalize complexity. At first this led to one
wandering eye & a convoluted appetite. So she tried to
fatten up on cherries. Cherries, peaches, & a certain
amount of fear. Fear of succeeding, but also the other
thing.
In these lines, we speed along jumping from one connection to another--complexity to appetite to cherries to cherries and fear to fear of succeeding. In essence, we swing wide, but we can see how we have made the swing, and the process encourages such creative leaps in the reader, i.e. it feels like a training manual in creative thinking without appearing to be a manual of any sort.
This is Not a Movie
but now & then feels like one, & often has the same
symptoms. With this overload of blurred identities,
it may be advisable to drag our feet through the
conceptual mud, a necessity devoutly to be resisted.
Unless it's preferable to jump ship & sink on out
own merits.
There is no explicit political message, but the piece feels like a commentary on the contemporary situation. How do we react to the overload? I think attempting this collection is a start.
She Tried (1)
to internalize complexity. At first this led to one
wandering eye & a convoluted appetite. So she tried to
fatten up on cherries. Cherries, peaches, & a certain
amount of fear. Fear of succeeding, but also the other
thing.
In these lines, we speed along jumping from one connection to another--complexity to appetite to cherries to cherries and fear to fear of succeeding. In essence, we swing wide, but we can see how we have made the swing, and the process encourages such creative leaps in the reader, i.e. it feels like a training manual in creative thinking without appearing to be a manual of any sort.
This is Not a Movie
but now & then feels like one, & often has the same
symptoms. With this overload of blurred identities,
it may be advisable to drag our feet through the
conceptual mud, a necessity devoutly to be resisted.
Unless it's preferable to jump ship & sink on out
own merits.
There is no explicit political message, but the piece feels like a commentary on the contemporary situation. How do we react to the overload? I think attempting this collection is a start.
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