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Wave Books, 2011
Self-referential story material and the matter of the current cultural moment are enmeshed in Anselm Berrigan's book-length
poem. This short volume of poetry manages to weave in
complex feelings and images of family, faith, memory, and
art. An excerpt from the poem reads: "Is a nude picture of /
Jackie O found in / Andy Warhol's suitcase / really a bizarre
item? / Isn't it a slightly tone- / deaf piece of nostalgia, / an entryway back to a / simpler time when there / was less to
know about / so much more? Or did / I get that backwards?"
Notes
from Irrelevance manages to remain intimate; its colloquialism and conversational mode engages the reader. Take, for instance, the following excerpt:
My sense of my own
history with images is
such that I consciously
developed a willingness
to let them go—to not
take pictures though
I'd keep feverishly
those gifted to me. I
might like the feeling
a photo meant I looked
like something: vanity
to affect to desperate
preservation of a
moment that never
felt settled or even
moment-like.
With its contained columnar form and tireless forward
motion, the poem lends itself to be read in one sitting, and
offers the reader an experience of the poet's thought process
and progression.
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