Michele Glazer

i read m. glazer's book which was recently published by iowa. steve suggested it to me after he attended her reading. i listened to the reading, and she was a bit gruff, which i like, but she was kinda rude to steve, which i don't like. some of the poems are quite nice, but some aren't really quite so hot at all. there's a nice one called 'box'"

who trusts in god knows
dumb luck's

other half
that startles, starts.

and there's a few regarding the death of a friend which have a bit of that caustic old dugan's way of handling the grossness of a body breaking, and you know, crack jokes on the edge:

What I can't ask you
couldn't tell me. The darkness
is the same. Write soon. Forgive me
when i use you.
Holding his cup of mucous, cells, erratica, pus, what else?
Then something-other's clumsy-handed someone and it spills.

nice.
but then there's one called "feathers" in which

Eager with the feathers
of the just dropped bird,
that dog's mouth inside is empty.
Now I don't want to.
And this dog's
mouth is what i think of
when i think of you when i don't want to.

my first admission: i like r. bly - this bums out a few of my friends.
my second is that this little poem reminds me of why i shouldn't like bly.

so, an inconsistent book, with some very good stuff and some dreck.