I’m rereading Paradise, Victoria Redel’s most recent collection of poems. Beginning with some midrashic poems, retellings of the story of the Garden of Eden, the book moves on to poems about family, childhood, adolescence, parenting, desire, aging, memory, menstruation, and more. Poems that, at a glance, don’t appear to have anything to do with paradise and the loss of paradise. Yet, on a fourth and fifth reading, I see how deeply connected some of the common experiences of, say, aging,...| Slant Books
I’ve become slightly obsessed with a writer named Alexander Trocchi. Trocchi was a Scottish writer born in Glasgow in 1925. He probably should have died of a heroin overdose, since he was addicted to the drug for much of his life and lived as an addict on the streets of NYC for many years. Alas, he died of cancer in London in 1984. The gods are, as ever, cruel and mischievous. The dedicated smack addict perished from smoking too many cigarettes.| Slant Books
Matthew Porto’s debut poetry volume, Moon Grammar (just published by Slant Books), is an intriguing collection. In three Parts, titled “The Angel,” “The Wanderer,” and “Endings,” Porto engages biblical narratives, travels in space and time, and finalities. All in all, Moon Garden’s poems give us a unique entry into what human life is about: its astonishments, its darknesses, its mysteries.| Slant Books