Preface

I’m not sure when I came across . I first found his work after picking up the Morrow Anthology of Younger American Poets, about five years back. I still have yet to get a book of his poems (although I’ve picked up his book of essays a half dozen times, unsuccessfully).

This one poem though (below) has stuck with me, after all this time. Something about the voice in the poem. Or perhaps it’s the progression, starting slowly as an introduction, then becoming incredibly gritty and visceral, and then easing off and somehow becoming both narrator and judge. And at the end of the poem, I find myself going back to the title.