From Publishers Weekly
In this disappointing book-length "novel in verse," Haxton ( Dominion ) portrays oddball characters who become even stranger as they interact. Eddy, a Vietnam veteran, attempts to come to terms with his dying father by sneaking him out of the hospital. The nurse on duty is in the laundry room having sex, and later the staff is anxious to cover up the absence of their patient. Eddy happens upon Amy, a strung-out junkie willing to turn tricks for dope. There are interesting possibilites inherent in this environment, but the characters' idiosyncrasies are lost in the poem's New Formalist blank verse--long dramatic monologues and narratives. Frequent inverted speech patterns seem at odds with the way such characters might think or act: "Eddy dragged his father into the back seat. / He knew he should have loaded him in the trunk, / But he would have to remember what he did. /Details, like the urinary catheter, / Were troubling him already." This book lacks authenticity; the author's representation of Vietnam and of drug addiction is constricted by cliches.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
The Albatross
Annunciation At Sundown
Back Alley
The Backhoe
Between The Fog And Flat Land
Big Brick House
The Blue Falcon
The Charts
Complaint
Crossings
Dealing
Dear Prowler
Dream Run
The Enemy
Festivities In Progress In The Nation's Capital
Fire Under Water
Flourish
Goodbye
The Heart Of The Goldfinch
It
The Kingfisher
Little House With Asbestos Siding
The Long Light On The Bison Bridge On Q Street
Money And Young Death
No Bridge
An Orchard Oriole
Paleologos
Pat Stanhope, Lpn
The Perpetrator
A Redtailed Hawk In Flight
Stairs
The Stone Ax
The Stoned Fox Outside Knoxville
Taking The Elvator
Terms
Thanksgiving
They Parley
Thunderbird, Thunderstick, And Angel
To Be A Jug Fisherman
Townes Grayley Underwood
Trailer
The Turn Of The Year Toward Morning
The Visitor
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®
Annunciation At Sundown
Back Alley
The Backhoe
Between The Fog And Flat Land
Big Brick House
The Blue Falcon
The Charts
Complaint
Crossings
Dealing
Dear Prowler
Dream Run
The Enemy
Festivities In Progress In The Nation's Capital
Fire Under Water
Flourish
Goodbye
The Heart Of The Goldfinch
It
The Kingfisher
Little House With Asbestos Siding
The Long Light On The Bison Bridge On Q Street
Money And Young Death
No Bridge
An Orchard Oriole
Paleologos
Pat Stanhope, Lpn
The Perpetrator
A Redtailed Hawk In Flight
Stairs
The Stone Ax
The Stoned Fox Outside Knoxville
Taking The Elvator
Terms
Thanksgiving
They Parley
Thunderbird, Thunderstick, And Angel
To Be A Jug Fisherman
Townes Grayley Underwood
Trailer
The Turn Of The Year Toward Morning
The Visitor
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®
