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How the Crimes Happened (Notable Voices)

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For Potter, crudeness is a means of orientation; and is also the gravity of memory and the seeds of vision. Thus one sees her tauntingly parading the garish--as in the opening words of "Sleep" where, "I flaunt my silk underwear,/one more slit-eyed bitch..."; who knows that to the one she is taunting, "Any old hag is the girl of your dreams...[and she is] time's cynic...." Eroticism and reality mingle, crudely mingle to furnish orientation as dead reckoning.

In other poems, the scope is broader and nexus more complex. The five-page "First Game" is not just a lengthy compilation of sights and behavior of parents, infants, students, teams, cheerleaders, etc., at a high-school basketball game--but a weaving of a cosmos of community complete with enthusiasms, romance, trepidations, and other feelings. In the end, all is right: the boys on the floor, embarrassing parents and sisters alike, worrying grandparents, hopeless, and playing in their ardent awkwardness, "They belong to us."

Potter's poems are constructed with a wit and insight which keeps the common imagery and settings fresh and revealing.