Customer Reviews

Chicken, Shadow, Moon & More

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This book has "collector" written all over it. Anne Galperin's design and the collage by Strand featured on the jacket make it the sort of book one buys as much for its appearance as for the writing itself. Turtle Point Press is a nice small press, and they've done a very fine job here; also, the sewn binding suggests the book is made to last.

CHICKEN, SHADOW, MOON & MORE consists of twenty lists, each titled with a different noun: "Chicken," "Shadow," "Moon," "Sun," "Lake," "Hour," and so forth. Each list contains two to three dozen sentences or (more often) sentence fragments, each containing the title word. Longtime readers of Strand will be amused but not surprised to find a list titled "Dog."

Judging from his comment on the book jacket, Strand (who won the Pulitzer Prize for his last collection of poems, BLIZZARD OF ONE) is reluctant to think of this as a poetry book, but that's essentially what it is. He's taking risks, but the risks often pay off: although some of the writing is flat, or simply odd, much of it is playful, evocative, and thought-provoking. As a whole the project is an uneven but interesting addition to his oeuvre.