Review by Choice Review
Consisting of 65 "rectangle poems" (unindented prose paragraphs with justified margins), six prose-like narratives, and an elegy in nine parts ("Persephone West"), this rather lengthy volume fails to convince at the level either of craftsmanship or of sensibility. Heavy reliance on sentence fragments, present active participles without subjects, and disjointed images from various regional American settings make for incoherence if not obscurity; and third-person substituted for first-person pronouns simply do not conceal the omnipresent, self-indulgent "I" in these pieces. Tarn's voice, alternately that of Zen master, displaced 1960s radical, environmentalist, lover, and satirist, in the end proves monotonous, and all too often the poems read like first drafts. Amorphous, abstract, these texts seem curiously without an emotional or intellectual center, asking the reader to accept facility in place of articulacy. It is unfortunate that the poet's breadth of allusion is not matched by a comparable commitment to the power of language and thought. That which is personal and reflective is not necessarily artistic, and this reviewer finds it impossible to recommend the book to readers with high expectations for contemporary verse. -W. C. Watterson, Bowdoin College
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
In turns surrealistic then not, lyrical then narrative, Tarn opens readers' eyes to the possibilities of poetry, allowing us to see the ordinary world anew. Though Tarn has been known for decades as one of the U.S.'s most able and gutsiest experimenters, this is his first collection in 10 years. In it, he explores our country's heart and mind simultaneously. "America picnics, squatting like relatives / by kin: Papa Packard, Sister Studebaker," he tells us, dead serious, in "Loss of the Line," one of his "rectangular" poems. Later in the same work, with tongue-in-cheek (maybe), he orders us to "kiss America's ass: not designed to last!" Tarn brings into his intriguing work both compassion and intelligence, love and cynicism--and not always in equal measures. This exceptional record of one artist's perceptions is as tantalizing as it is satisfying. --Jim Elledge
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
Review by Booklist Review
