William Trowbridge's stunning first poetry collection is titled Enter Dark Stranger. And enter he does, in almost every poem, in a series of farcical or chilling disguises: a Buchenwald guard, the Frog Prince, or the folks at home. Us, perhaps? His weapons are a deep puzzlement of feelings and a wonderful ear. He knows how to divert with jokes while he's about to attack: "BLAM, BLAM, BLAM!"
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Library Journal
The highlight of this fine collection is a set of poems about King Kong. Kong is a literal-minded, primitive outsider, moving from job to job, from football player to porn star to carnival act. Yet though all this is played for laughs--sometimes cheap laughs--in the end Kong movingly becomes a pathetic video date customer, beaten by his experiences and still trying to recapture his moment of glory. The view of American culture we get here is revealing. Also good are Trowbridge's sensitive poems about life with his son, which stay well clear of nostalgia. Trowbridge's skill with metrical verse keeps everything readable. Highly recommended.
- Steven Hupp, Eisenhower P.L., Harwood Heights, Ill.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
- Steven Hupp, Eisenhower P.L., Harwood Heights, Ill.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
Combining the sense of life of James Wright with the satire of Kurt Vonnegut, William Trowbridge reveals the grotesque beneath the commonplace: "Think of Karloff's monster,/full of lonely love but too hideous/to bear." Sparkling poems "full of lonely love" search behind the Halloween mask of terror (the "dark stranger") for the meaning of the American landscape. Trowbridge's sophisticated eye records the excesses of pop culture and "normal" American provincial life with obsessive deadpan. His snapshots of social reality embody something tragicomic. Searching "the old neighborhoods for clues: initials in a sidewalk,/a rusty nail pounded in a tree, a wish still floating/near the school," Trowbridge is a dispassionate and superb recorder in the tradition of Sherwood Anderson. -- Poet Lore, Frank Allen, Winter 1990-91
In the sequence of Kong poems, Kong asks our indulgence. The comedy is the sentimental one of the monster humanized; we recognize that in suffering we wear a mask, and that mask protects, perhaps distances, the person behind it from the pain of the persona. There may be an awful unease in our response; in amusement we are aware we cannot hate Kong, for there is nothing funny about someone we genuinely hate (Hitler, say). But on some level the poet asks us to identify with the power he exercises in adopting the persona. (The unease may be akin to our response at the movies, when Jolson or Irene Dunne suddenly appear in blackface.) The identification between the poet and the persona may be closer than is comfortable for laughs; it should be clear, for instance, that a large part of Randy Newman's effectiveness when he takes on the persona of a good ole boy is that he is an L.A. Jew taking on the persona. To the extent that we are likely to see the identification between poet and persona as close, we will feel, if we are that person's victim, the blurry self-censure of our indulgence rather than the fierce entreaching of stable irony. It might do, then, merely to note that in each Kong poem the conceit is applied to a different moment of the white male purview: "Kong Looks Back on His Tryout with the Bears," "Having Thought Better of a Shootout, Kong Consents to Rhumba Lessons," "Kong Turns Critic," "Kong Answers the Call for a Few Good Men," "Viet Kong," etc. One reads Enter Dark Stranger fondly; it is in the grain. -- Black Warrior Review, Jeff Hamilton, Fall/Winter, 1990
In this collection of 44 poems, in three sections, Trowbridge is offering a portrait of the Midwest familiar enough to those of us who live here. The unadulaterated imagie is not complimenary. But he is not trying to create an atmosphere comprehensible only to those from Missouri (Trowbridge's residence), or Illinois, or Iowa. And his poems are not esoteric; indeed, they are largely understood at a surface level, while underlying subleties reinforce first impressions. Trowbridge writes for all of us, though each poem is nevertheless a personal expression, a muffled cry of wonder. Beginning the collection is "Stark Weather," which describes how nature challenges each of us to not only survive, but survive willingly. Thrown by the winds and weather, one emotion is as good as another; "a pistol shot sounds/no louder than a screen door/slapping on a porch." Trowbridge starts with the familiar, then eases into his point. He, unlike many poets, is not afraid of humor. The entire second section consists of poems devoted to King Kong in absurd situations, from Kong taking rumba lessons, to trying to act, to joining the army. Each poem describes a scene that appears quite normal, until we remember that this is King Kong we're reading about. Trowbridge plays on our forgetfulness, so that the last few lines are always a surprise, and always very funny: "I ate/the man first, then the woman, both stringy, but then what's not these days." -- The Pikestaff Forum, Anita Tarr, Spring, 1991
This is a profound and remarkable work. Trowbridge has uncanny insight into the worlds of the insane, the disappointed, the violent and the fearful. He seems to intuit and remember every life form that is imaginable, or that has brushed his own. He also understands that aspects of the metamorphizing self are their own life forms. In his own voice he speaks with authority as one who is young, old, and most effectively, middle-aged. Trowbridge enables us to face the fear of difference without revulsion by pushing that fear so far that it disperses in a wind of laughter. His exacting spirit gives us the wet hopes and dry truths that we crave, in a literary landscape that is awash with easy sympathies. -- New Letters, Bette Tomlinson, January, 1990
Trowbridge has rare comic gifts, so much so that on the present American poetic landscape, where you can travel for days without laughing out loud, he is a walking oxymoron: a funny poet. I don't mean to belabor this, but how often does a reader of the major American poetry journals get to laugh with a poem in wickedly happy delight? -- Tar River Poetry, Richard Simpson, Rall, 1989
Trowbridge has the special skill of being able to take the tragic events of personal life and by superimposing comic undercurrents somehow relieve the burden of guilt and shame and fear we all, as human beings, must share. He seems to be obsessed with injustices and "all things that call us back to the world of imperfection." Yet with a touch of irony and skepticism, sarcasm and empathy, he speaks with conviction of a need for love, allegiance and fair play, recognizing with respect and understanding the foibles of old age and the kind of senility that glamorizes the past, bringing to fruition the dreams that were aborted in the realities of life. Trowbridge brings the reader to contemplation of the human condition as we all experience it. My advice is to read Enter Dark Stranger - aloud, if possible. -- Arkansas Gazette, Margaret McGuire, June 25, 1989
Trowbridge's world is one preoccupied with loss, with the fall from some possibility of grace that all who are born in sin must bear. He is with the villain, the outcast, the imperfect, the sinner, the alienated one. These poems, all comic but with Trowbridge's undercurrent of isolation running through them, are a success. -- The Chattahoochee Review, Leon Stokesbury, Summer, 1989
In the sequence of Kong poems, Kong asks our indulgence. The comedy is the sentimental one of the monster humanized; we recognize that in suffering we wear a mask, and that mask protects, perhaps distances, the person behind it from the pain of the persona. There may be an awful unease in our response; in amusement we are aware we cannot hate Kong, for there is nothing funny about someone we genuinely hate (Hitler, say). But on some level the poet asks us to identify with the power he exercises in adopting the persona. (The unease may be akin to our response at the movies, when Jolson or Irene Dunne suddenly appear in blackface.) The identification between the poet and the persona may be closer than is comfortable for laughs; it should be clear, for instance, that a large part of Randy Newman's effectiveness when he takes on the persona of a good ole boy is that he is an L.A. Jew taking on the persona. To the extent that we are likely to see the identification between poet and persona as close, we will feel, if we are that person's victim, the blurry self-censure of our indulgence rather than the fierce entreaching of stable irony. It might do, then, merely to note that in each Kong poem the conceit is applied to a different moment of the white male purview: "Kong Looks Back on His Tryout with the Bears," "Having Thought Better of a Shootout, Kong Consents to Rhumba Lessons," "Kong Turns Critic," "Kong Answers the Call for a Few Good Men," "Viet Kong," etc. One reads Enter Dark Stranger fondly; it is in the grain. -- Black Warrior Review, Jeff Hamilton, Fall/Winter, 1990
In this collection of 44 poems, in three sections, Trowbridge is offering a portrait of the Midwest familiar enough to those of us who live here. The unadulaterated imagie is not complimenary. But he is not trying to create an atmosphere comprehensible only to those from Missouri (Trowbridge's residence), or Illinois, or Iowa. And his poems are not esoteric; indeed, they are largely understood at a surface level, while underlying subleties reinforce first impressions. Trowbridge writes for all of us, though each poem is nevertheless a personal expression, a muffled cry of wonder. Beginning the collection is "Stark Weather," which describes how nature challenges each of us to not only survive, but survive willingly. Thrown by the winds and weather, one emotion is as good as another; "a pistol shot sounds/no louder than a screen door/slapping on a porch." Trowbridge starts with the familiar, then eases into his point. He, unlike many poets, is not afraid of humor. The entire second section consists of poems devoted to King Kong in absurd situations, from Kong taking rumba lessons, to trying to act, to joining the army. Each poem describes a scene that appears quite normal, until we remember that this is King Kong we're reading about. Trowbridge plays on our forgetfulness, so that the last few lines are always a surprise, and always very funny: "I ate/the man first, then the woman, both stringy, but then what's not these days." -- The Pikestaff Forum, Anita Tarr, Spring, 1991
This is a profound and remarkable work. Trowbridge has uncanny insight into the worlds of the insane, the disappointed, the violent and the fearful. He seems to intuit and remember every life form that is imaginable, or that has brushed his own. He also understands that aspects of the metamorphizing self are their own life forms. In his own voice he speaks with authority as one who is young, old, and most effectively, middle-aged. Trowbridge enables us to face the fear of difference without revulsion by pushing that fear so far that it disperses in a wind of laughter. His exacting spirit gives us the wet hopes and dry truths that we crave, in a literary landscape that is awash with easy sympathies. -- New Letters, Bette Tomlinson, January, 1990
Trowbridge has rare comic gifts, so much so that on the present American poetic landscape, where you can travel for days without laughing out loud, he is a walking oxymoron: a funny poet. I don't mean to belabor this, but how often does a reader of the major American poetry journals get to laugh with a poem in wickedly happy delight? -- Tar River Poetry, Richard Simpson, Rall, 1989
Trowbridge has the special skill of being able to take the tragic events of personal life and by superimposing comic undercurrents somehow relieve the burden of guilt and shame and fear we all, as human beings, must share. He seems to be obsessed with injustices and "all things that call us back to the world of imperfection." Yet with a touch of irony and skepticism, sarcasm and empathy, he speaks with conviction of a need for love, allegiance and fair play, recognizing with respect and understanding the foibles of old age and the kind of senility that glamorizes the past, bringing to fruition the dreams that were aborted in the realities of life. Trowbridge brings the reader to contemplation of the human condition as we all experience it. My advice is to read Enter Dark Stranger - aloud, if possible. -- Arkansas Gazette, Margaret McGuire, June 25, 1989
Trowbridge's world is one preoccupied with loss, with the fall from some possibility of grace that all who are born in sin must bear. He is with the villain, the outcast, the imperfect, the sinner, the alienated one. These poems, all comic but with Trowbridge's undercurrent of isolation running through them, are a success. -- The Chattahoochee Review, Leon Stokesbury, Summer, 1989
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More About the Author
Biographical Note
William Trowbridge holds a B.A. in Philosophy and an M. A. in English from the University of Missouri-Columbia and a Ph.D. in English from Vanderbilt University. His poetry publications include five full collections: Ship of Fool (Red Hen Press, forthcoming), The Complete Book of Kong (Southeast Missouri State University Press, 2003), Flickers, O Paradise, and Enter Dark Stranger (University of Arkansas Press, 2000, 1995, 1989), and three chapbooks, The Packing House Cantata (Camber Press, 2006), The Four Seasons (Red Dragonfly Press, 2001) and The Book of Kong (Iowa State University Press, l986). His poems have appeared in more than 30 anthologies and textbooks, as well as in such periodicals as Poetry, The Gettysburg Review, Crazyhorse, The Georgia Review, Boulevard, The Southern Review, Columbia, Colorado Review, The Iowa Review, Prairie Schooner, Epoch, and New Letters. He has given readings and workshops at schools, colleges, bookstores, and literary conferences throughout the United States. His awards include an Academy of American Poets Prize, a Bread Loaf Writers' Conference scholarship, a Camber Press Poetry Chapbook Award, and fellowships from The MacDowell Colony, Ragdale, Yaddo, and The Anderson Center. He is Distinguished University Professor Emeritus at Northwest Missouri State University, where he was an editor of The Laurel Review/GreenTower Press from 1986 to 2004. Now living in Lee's Summit, MO, he teaches in the University of Nebraska low-residency MFA in writing program. His web site is http://williamtrowbridge.net.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Is this us?,
By A Customer
This review is from: ENTER DARK STRANGER (Hardcover)
I must be honest here, and say that I know Bill Trowbridge. I have known him for six or so years. I consider him one of my closest friends. It's not a crime that I'm writing here about his book, is it? Aren't a few of these five star reviews on Amazon from friends and relatives? This is an honest review, or I wouldn't be writing it. I wouldn't be, I'm not making this stuff up. If you love beautiful poetry, if you love irony, if you detest sentimentality, if you want to see into the dark worlds of the disappointed, the fearful, the furious, the patient, a spirit of hope and determination, if you want to recall your own childhood and adolescence, if you want sarcasm and tenderness in the same breath, if you want to smile, if you you love landscape (especially of the Midwest), if you want to know grace and loss as Trowbridge sees it, as you might yourself see it, you should read this book. Especially the Kong poems, especially "The Madness of Kong." It goes like this: I think I see it now: they chase me/because I'm mad, and I'm mad because/they chase me. So said the doctor/when I told him I was kidnapped/from my secret island by movie men/and a tiny blonde in love with screaming,/that I was God and may still be,/that I'm immune to bombs and bullets./He said it would be years before/I'm cured, that Mother is behind it all./When I pinched his head, it made/alittle squeak. Sometimes it's good/to be mad, if you think about it. Don't you love it?
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
I marked the cadence of underappreciated genius,
By Gooch McCracken (c/o your haunted slab of Velveeta) - See all my reviews
This review is from: ENTER DARK STRANGER (Hardcover)
This is the finest collection of poems since Philip Larkin's HIGH WINDOWS. (Although I've gotta admit that I'm not much of a reader of poetry. Come to think of it, I'm not much of an admirer of poetry. Take a look in those yearly anthologies and you'll see what I mean.)
Almost all of Trowbridge's poems are prose-poems. With none of that corny rhyme-&-meter horsecrap. And my only complaint is that maybe some of these poems should've been formatted in a prose format instead of with the corny line-breaks. Or maybe not. Or maybe Andrew Motion should be thrown off a goddam bridge and replaced by Trowbridge as Poet Laureate of Limeyland. Anything to get Trowbridge more publicity. One of the things I love about Trowbridge is his empathy. His willingness to impersonate other people. My favorite thing in here is probably WALKING HOME. Where an older-than-dirt Trowbridge is walking around the block in his hometown. And time has rendered him a stranger to his old neighborhood.
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