The Dance of No Hard Feelings
Starred Review. We still can't know/ anyone but we have a way of not minding not knowing, says Lambda Award–winning poet Bibbins (Sky Lounge) in the first poem of this second collection, which takes much of its subject matter and its attitude from life in George W. Bush's America, where a drop/ of empathy sinks into/ a millionth word for shit/ said a million times. These poems are made powerful by the bitter energy of a voice not silenced but made to sound ridiculous in a political culture in which disagreement with the government is unpatriotic. A series of poems called Forcefield seeks to take stock of and reconcile the damage America has done to itself: we inch/ away from the windows// the bones// come falling/ down the chimney// the bones are still wet. Other poems elliptically speak for heartbroken citizens: I mean not to trivialize, but once/ we experienced it as agoraphobia—// real work getting out the door—/ and look what lay there: unreadings/ and misgivings. The colossal long poem that concludes the book describes The Devil You Don't, who was more often the tempted/ than the tempter. Those who will feel themselves spoken for by these poems have been hungrily awaiting this book.(Sept.)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.