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Public Poetry, Kevin Walzer's meditations on poetry, publishing, business, and other creative pursuits
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Kevin Walzer, a poet, poetry publisher, husband, and father.
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Mon, 19 Mar 2007
Book of the Day: The Underflower by Jay Snodgrass
Jay Snodgrass's The Underflower is a book of tough, uncompromising poems that twist the notions of landscape and spirit into something utterly and indelibly new. Drawing freely from popular culture and the specific landscapes of South Florida, Snodgrass's work looks and sounds like no one else's.
This poem is characteristic of Snodgrass's technique:
Signals
One if by sea. Twice if by handgun.
I lay down in the dewy grass
While insects ask me new tough ones.
I crumple the paper of your moon
In my heart.
Together I am broken bread, apart
I chew through the lord’s nails.
I’m sure I’ve said this before:
Eternal Highway. The vault
Opens outward to your just standing there.
I am sanctuary inside the improvised
Bomb of your heart.
I sweat tree sap and road tar.
While driving down the absolute
I hear the chorus of unstopperd
Insects drill their anthem into the landscape.
The knotty syntax and driving rhythm of these lins make this poem difficult on the first reading, but it repays the reader's attention. Snodgrass is a unique stylist in contemporary poetry.