Three Poems
The west is systole, attenuation,
a properly modulated voice,
too much flesh drawn (by choice)
tight in a corset.
the wisdom of the west is a book of rules
not quite indispensable
for those who travel by Pullman.
Fortunately the women of the west
pivot on a more vital fulcrum,
take off their rules with their clothes,
are fond of orchids, imaginative in their discretion.
By Alexander Trocchi.
Spells & Counterspells
Luckily, one doesn’t have to come up with a label every time one picks up a book; but if we are to accept the analogies between Michael Crummey’s Galore and, say, Márquez’s masterpieces (one of the epigraphs is taken from him) and agree they belong to the same genre, it doesn’t half explain the success of the former. For what Crummey manages especially well is to counter-balance reality and myth without trying to define where one ends and the other begins.
Anna Aslanyan reviews Michael Crummey‘s Galore.