The Last Nostalgia: Poems 1982-1990
"In Atlanta once, on Peachtree Street,/ I met a woman and took her in my arms,/ Lifting her body to see the blond fire/ Of her hair flare against buildings, sky." When Bolton killed himself at the age of 28 in 1990, he was already recognized as one of the vital and compelling voices of his generation. Born in western Kentucky, he spent time in Texas, Florida, and Arizona, and it is the streets, faces, and voices of these locales that haunt his poems. They are, as one might expect, often dark, bleak, and lonely. "Page," dated only days before his suicide, wrestles with discomfort. "Reliance upon language was its undoing.../ But someday it will be all that is left of me./ Death bothers its margins like gulls along some shore." There is more to Bolton, though, than somber meditation: "That field I floated Shelly Solare's panties into./ Summer of 1979, their frail lace hung/ In moonlight forever above the dark rows of corn." There were epiphanies, moments that lifted his eyes from the dark to the heavens, or nearly so. What might have been.... Recommended.ALouis McKee, Painted Bride Arts Ctr., PhiladelphiaCopyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.