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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Scrivener in the Scriptorium, May 27, 2001
This review is from: Errors in the Script: Sewanee Writers Conference Series (Sewanee Writers' Series) (Hardcover)
Williamson may well be the most prodigiously gifted young poet to come along since Wilbur, Hecht and Justice appeared around 1950. All these masters have eloquently praised his work; and if we fifty-somethings haven't said much, maybe we're too flumoxed by how damn good he is. Errors in the Script is a substantially better book than The Silent Partner, which was superb. The first third is comprised of big, solid poems which are advances on his earlier triumphs. My two favorites are Origami and Kites at the Washington Monument. The second third is a tour de force, twenty-six Double Exposures. Each poem is three poems, two in heroic couplets, and the third in quatrains. The left and right-hand poems interleave like fingers in hands folded in prayer to form the third, and the third is far greater than the sum of the parts. The same is true of the entire work, an extended meditation on life, on consciousness and perception. The final section of the book is perhaps a little too hip, too flip, for my codgerly taste, though mall-crawlers half my age may prize it above the rest. Anyone seriously interested in the present and future of poetry owes it to her or himself to acquire this terrific collection.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Brilliant, Brilliant Book, April 21, 2001
This review is from: Errors in the Script: Sewanee Writers Conference Series (Sewanee Writers' Series) (Hardcover)
There may not be much I can say about Greg Williamson's second book that isn't said by the blurbs on the back cover. Williamson is "brilliant, masterful, hilarious"; the book has "ingenuity," and "wit and invention and vigor." All true. Even a glance at the book would tell you that Williamson can handle form as well as any poet practicing in America now: the hallmark of his adroitness is surely the central sequence of "Double Exposures," poems which describe a (notional) roll of double-exposed film, by reading in one column (in couplets) as a description of one image, in the other column (also couplets) as the second image, then -- here's the brilliance -- reading differently as the two columns interleave (as quatrains). It's a form of Williamson's invention, and I imagine Anthony Hecht of James Merrill might kick himself for not coming up with it sooner. The most amazing thing about this sequence, however, is that it succeeds in being more than a stunt: at turns it is insightful and emotionally touching, as when a description of a broken radiator becomes a description of a fighting couple: "The thing was just a radiator, right? / (And we were talking, vowing to try again.) / Which didn't work, especially at night." Indeed, formal proficiency is NOT the only virtue of this book: look closer -- peer through the veneer -- and you'll see that it is deeply and intelligently concerned with all the problems of beautiful surfaces: misprision (as in "Binocular Diplopia"), multivalence (as in his five-answers-per-riddle "Riddles"), and nearly every other problem of interpretation. I suspect some readers may see Williamson's smooth, clever finish and accuse him of vacuity, of being all surface, but that could only come from such a reader's shallow reading. The mockingbird imitating car alarms in one of Williamson's poems is not a joke but a serious commentary on the place of nature in our lives (a development, perhaps, from "Nature Poem," in his earlier _The_Silent_Partner_). Nor are the puns in "The Dark Days" trivial simply because they seem to offer that "momentary stay against confusion" Frost claims all poetry should offer. Can a poet of the twenty-first century offer both polish and depth? Apparently so, apparently so. I couldn't recommend this book more strongly, especially for junior poets practicing and refining their craft.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Amazing Collection, March 29, 2002
This review is from: Errors in the Script: Sewanee Writers Conference Series (Sewanee Writers' Series) (Hardcover)
This collection of poems is united under the theme of "Errors" which comes through in very interesting, and often very amusing ways. Williamson says in one of his poems, "They ask what I can make. `I make mistakes.'" Found in the second section of the book, Williamson's "Double Exposures" was fascinating for its completely new dualistic style. I applaud his creativity and skill for the idea of describing a double exposed photograph image through a poem made out of two parts; where each part composes half of a whole poem, or image, and yet where each may stand alone and be read separately without appearing nonsensical. These double exposures fit into the theme of "Errors" in that they were made "accidentally." The poem "Origami" also supports the theme of Errors well; it explores the multiple representations a sheet of paper may take on, from a bed sheet to the mainsail of the Pequod, to a snowball when crumpled at the end of the poem. Williamson continues to play on words and meanings in his poem entitled "Riddles" which consists of twelve three-lined poems which each represent a riddle with multiple answers, all of which are provided on an "Answer sheet." The entire collection possesses this similar playful tone to it, and contains an infectious sense of amazement and excitement in the hidden meanings of the written word. Readers that enjoy riddles and puns will be enthralled with Willamson's manipulation of words throughout his poems. In the other sections of the book, ambiguities in language and meaning are further explored in "Top Priority" and in the more serious, darkly humorous, "The Muse Addresses the Poet (and getteth alle up in hys face)" which explores the troubles encountered in modern day poetry writing. We are even taken into the life of a man with astigmatism, the disease of seeing double, in the poem "Binocular Diplopia." Most of the poems also contain allusions to classic works such as Milton's "Paradise Lost" or Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales." There are multiple implications to Hardy's "Darkling Thrush" in Williamson's "The Mockingbird Is Imitating Life." So, for prolific readers, these allusions make the poetry rich through deeper layers of meaning. However, the reader need not have any knowledge or background in poetry or the classics to enjoy this collection since the style used is one that appeals to the general public with its modern themes and new poetic forms. The humor, wit, and innovative writing techniques found in this book are what make it my favorite collection of contemporary poetry to date.
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