Customer Reviews

Black Series: Poems

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Those familiar with Laurie Sheck's three other books will find her latest to be an impressive expansion on her vivid imagery drawn from urban or ancient settings as she now ventures into the black of the Nevada Test Site, among other places. Anyone who has visited the haunting Mercury, Nevada cannot fail to be captivated by Laurie's poem Traces. We who read The Store Windows Glitter in the Boston Review last year and were gasping for more will not be disappointed, as she continues with The Mannequins to explore and contrast the living and the inanimate.

Laurie has once again crystallized the meaning of urban life in The Subway Platform, which is in some ways a poetic parallel to Cristina Peri Rossi's The Crack in The Museum of Useless Efforts, though Laurie's poem is more personal and intense.

Readers who enjoyed Laurie's previous works on ancient subjects will find much to enchant here, such as Medusa and Pompeii. It is this contrast between the past and contemporary worlds that makes these poems a compelling read. Cave paintings compared with urban grafitti (in separate poems) are but one example of the startling imagery that permeates this book.

Another aspect of these poems that elevates them above much of today's poetry is their sense of the impact of computers and technology on our lives. In reading most poets writing today, one would never know that computers or advanced technology exist at all, as these dominant aspects of life are largely ignored. Laurie's poem Circuits is but one illustration of how this book responds to our electronic environment and makes a literary statement that any reader can appreciate.

Note: The title of this review is a variant on the title of Moynihan's Maximum Feasible Misunderstanding. The misunderstanding here concerns a rather pathetic review of Black Series that appeared in the New York Times in which the critic displayed a complete ignorance of what Laurie's poetry is. Without belaboring the point, that reviewer felt that Black Series needs more "precision," a charge so ridiculous that it reminds me of a critic of Emily Dickinson's "I taste a liquor never brewed/From tankards scooped in pearl" who disliked the poem because he believed pearl to be an inadequate material for making a beverage container. That's about as much sense as the NYT review makes, so ignore it.

Black Series is a book to buy and enjoy through multiple readings. The subject matter is astonishingly diverse, and the poems are much more intense than most being written today. This book is a feast for the reader.

I must take issue with the Publishers Weekly review quoted on this site, where the reviewer accuses Laurie Sheck of emulating Jorie Graham. That's a stunningly false assessment, since nothing could be further from the truth. I find Ms. Sheck's poems very original, and certainly not derivative of Ms. Graham. As a matter of fact, most of the Jorie Graham poems I've read left me rather cold and distant with their forced and calculating artistry, whereas Laurie Sheck often moves me on intellectual as well as emotional levels.