| C O N T E N T S | H O M E P A G E | J A C K E T # N I N E | O C T O B E R 1 9 9 9 |
|
| |
|
THIS FIRST full-length publication from Skanky Possum Press is a unique pleasure, with a particularity of detail and exactness of context that little contemporary poetry can match. According to the book's foreword, Naltsus Bichidin was the nickname of one John Bourke, chronologist of the United States' Sierra Madre campaign against Geronimo, and Bichidin becomes the focal point for a set of poems informed as thoroughly by historical matters as they are by present day concerns. | |
|
Poems from Naltsus Bichidin overflows with historical figures, as if Thayler couldn't keep them out even if he tried. Rimbaud meets Billy the Kid; Buddy Holly, Chet Baker and other musicians proliferate; details of 19th century American wars and affairs, public and private, collide into twentieth century international modernism. Context, Thayler implies, not only makes but overwhelms us; each of us is more, and our contexts are more, than any of us can bear. A dry irony runs through these poems and reflects on possibilities gained and lost, on tragedies as well as pleasures. | |
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
|