The surreal composition of his line puts a tense distance between people and places. These poems go in and out of focus, move in close to something, then back away, retreating from the unconscious anxiety of contact into repressed elegies of truly beautiful, and funny, notes to a swollen world. I went to have a drink somewhere Else. I went to the office where I used to live. All in all It wasn't enough.
Someone is at the door.
These lines waver between passive hesitancy and an active doing of things. There are these people, these poems, but it's not enough. Where has the life gone, he asks. The pressures of family and friends dominate many of these poems. And Anselm's poetic gift complicates relationships, which at turns are close, frightening, hateful or humorous.