Customer Reviews

Imagination Verses

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

 

 

Some books of verse one permits to accompany one on the train, into the countryside, out to lunch, into waiting rooms, to the table at dinner, in a car, to the park, etc. Very few (in fact none, or perhaps one or two others, in our present period) *accompany* one, in the great sense of that word, into bed, and from there to the inside of one's very being, and remain lodged and embroidered yet autonomously murmuring there, probably as long as one lives.

Imagination Verses is beautiful, beguiling, bled from the pen of someone wracked; it is full of youthful mistakes and of dizzying genius.

Reading this book evokes a desire to pinpoint, peg, find an adjective for elusive lines containing wordplays, social commentaries, and interesting metaphors, but the word that consistently comes to mind is quirky. Sometimes brilliant, sometimes abstruse, the unpredictable poems open up to all sorts of possibilities.

So, how does one rate such poetic potential? The poet's close acquaintance with poetry rates all stars, of course, but, at times, inaccessibility mars the lines and chills the star temp before warming again with such astute statements as "even the weather/ stood aside and let us pass." Consider, too, such slow-blooming assessments as "I suspect the water's edge is enamored of the water" or unusual lines like "I the she the leased forever."

Moxley's imaginative verse grows on you and bears repeating without worrying about wearing out your welcome. As one upfront poem declares, "All orphaned overstuffs are welcomed here/ as are rickety wood. And on that note/ broken things may stay as long as they please." Presumably, that welcome mat includes an invitation to read these poems again and look for those that follow.