Dacey here ranges widely in tones, strategies and forms, a diversity appropriate for one who characteristically meditates on American identity. In these poems, Dacey winds together many strands - our national pop culture, the vagaries of human discourse, death, and sexuality - and frames them in a narrative as comic as it is plangent. Surprises in the book include cameo appearances by George Bush and Florence Nightingale as well as a take on J. S. Bach that owes something to the Keystone Cops.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Library Journal
In his fifth book, Dacey (The Boy Under the Bed) makes highly accessible poetry from the artifacts of daily life, e.g., TV shows, recorded messages, and speeding tickets. But Dacey transmutes the ordinary into the metaphorical and the surreal; dream time and normal time coexist in his poetic universe. And sophisticated forms like sonnets and couplets tend to alternate with a very readable free verseADacey, after all, is the coeditor of Strong Measures: Contemporary American Poetry in Traditional Forms. In the title poem, an elegy to his father, Dacey brings the old man a girlie magazine "like a priest with a last rite." Elsewhere, the poet's traffic-cop brother works "as brave bullfighters work close to the horns," and Florence Nightingale sees a stack of cordwood that, on closer view, "turns into tossed amputated limbs." Readable and fresh, Dacey's poems engage and delight because the poet is always drawn "to metaphor." Highly recommended for all collections.
Daniel L. Guillory, Millikin Univ., Decatur, IL
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Daniel L. Guillory, Millikin Univ., Decatur, IL
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
paper 0-910055-47-5 The Minnesota State Univ. Professor is probably better known for his influential anthology, Strong Measures (which he co- edited in 1986), than for his five previous books of poetry. Though the anthology announced a new interest in traditional forms, Dacey seems not to have mastered them in all this time. Which is not to say he doesnt come close in the best poems here, those that happen also to be the least personal of his narratives. Four pieces on Walt Whitman derive from incidents in the poets life: he attends a church service at a mental asylum; falls asleep reading Florence Nightingale on nursing (and imagines working side- by-side with her); and is seen from the view of a young man whose parents entertain the poet one summer, during which time he wades in the creek naked and hugs trees, much to the speakers amusement. A simple Blakean poem, The Burial, in rhymed couplets, finds the poet attending the funeral of his young nephew. Too many of Daceys other, jokier poems seem dashed-off and are often occasioned by the oddity of a found sentence or phrase. For the God Poseidon mixes the modern submarines with their ancient namesake; The Neighbors answers a pundits hypothetical remark about George Bush and Saddam Hussein; Four Men in a Car elaborates on a photographers remark that no image is sadder than that in the title; and Trousersthe most tasteless of the typeriffs on a remark from Nadezhda Mandelstam. But Dacey isnt worried about being offensive: in bad-boy Catholic form, he updates the Stations of the Cross with his glib political rhetoric; and in the execrable Why Jesus Was Crucified, he ends a narrative about discovering his wifes sketches of her vagina with an absurd conceit about the death of Christ. Daceys heavily and pointlesslyenjambed lines suggest his formal unease, and his short-line free verse is often sentimental, embarrassing, or both. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
I highly reccommend The Deathbed Playboy.,
By Kathleen Lynch (Carmichael, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Deathbed Playboy (Paperback)
The Deathbed Playboy is a wonderful read. Dacey's tonal range is wide. The poems are smart, tender, and often funny. Smart, but not pedantic. Tender, but not gooey and manipulative. Funny, but not frivolous. The title poem, "The Deathbed Playboy," is a stunner. The tension between the humor and grief is palpable, and the funny and frantic reflections of the speaker are heartbreaking. So many contemporary books of poetry sound like they were all ghost-written by one glib Writing Workshop star. Dacey has a distinctive voice. It's generous, sly, comic and wonderfully accessible. This one goes on my gift-giving list
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