The Late Parade: Poems
This first book from one of New York’s most provocative young voices succeeds early modernists like Hart Crane and Marcel Duchamp in its spirited experimentation with language, image, and form. Fitzgerald packs each stanza with unexpected turns and inventive verbosity, fusing disjointed phrases into a procession of strange animals, like a lexical bestiary. His speakers’ canorous concatenations twist into a kind of “barbed-wire lyricism,” taut and sharp. And Fitzgerald gilds the bronze mechanics of syntax in deft syllabics that shimmer with sensory detail, be it the yellow bulbs of “genius apricots,” the ambiguous hue of a “puce balustrade,” or the “Giotto chapel / we’ll name / our stone-braced / embodiment.” Like his high-modernist predecessors, Fitzgerald appends an index that offers insight into his myriad influences and source material, from Christopher Marlowe’s plays to Emily Dickinson’s letters, W. H. Auden’s poetry, David Lynch’s films, Giorgio de Chirico’s still lifes, and Cat Power’s punk blues. Part lyrical experiment, part poetic appropriation, and perfect for anyone willing to follow avant-garde explorations. --Diego Báez