Portland Public Library

A several world, Brian Blanchfield

eng

no index present

poetry

A several world

862788085

Brian Blanchfield

"As in the title phrase--borrowed from a 17th century poem by Robert Herrick--in which 'several' is used to individuate, questions of singularity and the plural, of subjectivity and the collective, pervade this dream-quick poetry. In A Several World there are glimpses of an 'us down here'--in a city state, in a valley town, in an open clearing, in the understory--and, by various projections, there is frequent attainment of an aerial vantage, a supervisory perspective. The wish to be out of the weeds, to imagine one can see the thing in whole, and, conversely, the wish to be overseen, even to be overlooked, further animate the poetic shuttling between late pastoral and conceptual project. Landscape here is spatial theater and, blowing through like new weather, a choreography recruits certain standalone selves: solidarity beginning in an erotics of attunement, catching likenesses. 'Pick me up can also be as frequency and antennae do.'"--, Publisher's description