Customer Reviews

Fragile Replacements

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

FRAGILE REPLACEMENTS is an elegant collection of poems by the very gifted William Allegrezza, a poet from Chicago whose influence is being felt by his students and admirers of fine contemporary poetry both here and in Europe. This particular book, published in 2007 may be difficult to find but the rewards for those persistent in searching for copies will by amply rewarded.

Not only are Allegrezza's thoughts, fleeting concepts that seem born of fragile air so easily do they take flight on the page, original and perfectly molded into the poetic form, they are also made visually beautiful in the way he places his poems on the printed page. Reading both his long poems and short moments of distilled imagery and passion is much like listening to a poetry reading: his spacing of phrases and words on the page allow moments for breathing, for reflection on the at times profound references he is suggesting. His 41 page poem 'Go-between' superimposes fragments from Dante's 'Vita Nuova', incorporating these fragments in a subtle manner that invests the poem with a sense of connectedness to the past while spinning extraordinary ideas like ether in the atmosphere. In the long poem "Gathering Forces' Allegrezza takes leaping risks in the combination of typeface and font size to jolt the eye into following his sparsely placed bursts of inspiration.

But when the poet simply captures a moments in a short poem the impact is visceral as in 'uses'

someday we'll manage to find
the yes or no
among the scattered bits of an
otherwise useless symphony
and there waiting
will be the last
survivors of the great war
on park benches
discussing the end of
human life as though it's
nothing special
as though our concepts
rely only on our concepts
and we are not really
flowers thrown up through
brackish ground in a
chamber of death.

Or in 'surface'

i imagine your skin
under mine
as fire crackles
and lights dim.

William Allegrezza's works belong in the library of all those who find restoration in the poetry of our contemporary poets. He is a gifted craftsman. Grady Harp, December 09

I won this book as a Goodreads giveaway and have expended some effort in reading and re-reading the poetry contained within. Although my initial reaction to this book was that the poetry was simply too abstract and detached from ordinary experience to communicate effectively, I pressed on. In the end, however, I simply found myself unable to relate to the author's use of language. Although there were a few phrases that caught my attention and stimulated my imagination, they were few and far between. By and large, then, this was not an enjoyable read. Your mileage may vary.