Customer Reviews

Flood Song

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A stunning book. A selection from this book was featured on Poetry Daily and I was intrigued by the economy, compression and use of language. Still, you don't imagine that anyone could maintain such virtuosity for seventy pages. Wrong. I am a voracious reader of modern poetry; this book stunned me. Surprising nouns and verbs juxtaposed in surprising ways at every turn. The commonplace constantly elevated to the extraordinary. The everyday brutality of fact, as it presents itself in nature, appreciated for its kaleidoscopic thusness. And I read the whole book (in one sitting) before I discovered that the cover illustration was painted by the poet as well. Rarely have I seen a better marriage of cover and content. The painting tells you everything you need to know in terms of form, color and energy--and all the rest--about the poetry. The people at Copper Canyon have come through again, bless them. All that and, if the title (Flood Song) and the arrangement of the work throughout the book (such intoxicating celebration of negative space) mean anything, it is one poem. No titles. No numbers. No pretension whatsoever. The words working closely with the space to create a single arc of meaning. One poem. It is a rare thing for a poet to be so comfortable with telling you all there is to know about himself. Sherwin Bitsui does that here. Ultimately, that's poetry.

A man with a different background brings many different views. "Flood Song" is a collection of poetry from Sheriwn Bitsui as he offers her own viewpoints on the world through the eyes of a modern Navajo, with influences from much in the way of traditional western culture. A unique and enlightening read, "Flood Song" is a fine volume of poetry for those looking for a native American perspective. A sample: Bluebirds chirp icy rocks from their stomachs/and crash,/wings caked heavy/with the dark mud a gunmetal sky,/to the earth's bandages/shivering with cold spells and convulsions/in the market/underneath an avalanche of apples.