Sunday 17 May 2009

Re: Jeremiah, Ohio

Well here's a coincidence. Just now, out in the backyard, I read a chapter of David W. McFadden's An Innocent in Ireland telling of an encounter with tourists from Ohio, and earlier today I'd been reading Adam Sol's Jeremiah, Ohio. (You didn't get your hopes too high about the coincidence, did you?)

I think there's an Anansi thing going on: Sol's book reminds me of Ken Babstock's Airstream Land Yacht. Similar store of surprises, snappiness, poems that rollick you along until you've had a blast even if you're not quite sure what happened.

In terms of my (decidedly not innocent) purposes, here's what the Sol offers:
- a brave, wide range from the ordinary on up/down
- formal regularities I've never considered
- the longpoem push he calls a "novel in poems"
- the character (of Jeremiah, in his case)
etc.

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