Tuesday, July 24, 2012

re: "Blinded By the Light Then the Dark" by Duane Ackerson

Notes toward a review by Marge Simon of Duane Ackerson's fine "Blinded by the Light Then the Dark" which has been recommended for the Stoker Prize: 

...the poems are exquisite capsules..."Fire" and many others have a Charles Simic flavor.




Some standouts: 
"Still Life With Tears," "The Wooden Sea," "Notes on Decoding Snowflakes," "Horses Over Stiles" (fantastic metaphor, horse as a part of the earth rising into the air, man aboard)
"Return to Short Attention Span Theater"  (a sense of losing time, a world away...the feeling of something fleeting, like life, lost from your grasp, your "almost-grasp")
"I am the Bullet"  (the last five lines  - absolutely perfect.)  
"Evening at the Playground"  (time changing evidence of fact...permanently in flux.)


I've enjoyed gazing at the cover and into it...which is sky, where do clouds overlap or does the sky overlap the clouds, sunlight burning through the night...