The Balloonists
Biss' slender debut collection is as spare as a Japanese watercolor. Her narrative prose poems limn, via a series of interwoven subjects and themes, the story of a family, complete with a cast of characters and time lines, a tale that, by extension, transcends into the universal. A stunning opening example is the juxtaposition of the mother's amazement that more people don't commit suicide because of the difficulties of living with snippets from a news item reporting a plane crash that focuses on the retrieval and use of the Black Box (actually bright orange), or cockpit voice recorder. Prior to the transcript's release, the National Transportation Safety Board deletes all emotional material, leaving only materials "useful to the public." So too with family histories, Biss suggests in her austere yet sure and evocative poems. Interwoven with swift images of brightly lit, high-ceilinged supermarkets are recollections of a six-year-old crush and fragments of dreams, creating an oddly engaging mosaic.Whitney ScottCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.