The voices in IMPATIENCE are a friendly squad of famished rats chewing through a stack of old magazines. Herein, some people die alone in the middle of the ocean, others buy the most fashionable dishwasher, some people sell wooden forks and others eat Bermuda onions with fresh New Jersey tomatoes and a touch of sugar. Small narratives, real and imagined, crop up throughout the poem's 52 sections-- there's a recipe for curried chicken and a receipt for fried bologna sandwiches delivered by a Manhattan hotel room-service bellboy named Chet. These are shuffled in with leaves from an obscure middle-western train stationmaster's dream diary complete with redheads from Yonkers in pencil skirts and a brief appearance of Three Martini Marlow in a road race with Road Hog Roger. Awards are given for salesmanship while open calls for summer swimming camp compete over first place with headlines for the death of a famous Hungarian magician who told reporters he was from Wisconsin. Reading this book you will scan all 50 of the United States and our two protectorates with a peripatetic gaze--dive into the brimming waters, the pace is brisk but the competition is cordial.
Based loosely on a map of the 1965 World's Fair, this is the second in a thirteen volume sequence of book-length works, following 2005's acclaimed Emergency Press Book Contest Award winner VIRGA. An interview with the poet follows IMPATIENCE, with insights into his fascination with the number thirteen and a disambiguation on the inherent contradictions in the concept of projective verse via Charles Olson's chain-smoking. To read this book sit back, open a can of beer and a foil-wrapped envelope of processed cheese food to smear on your wax-wrapped sleeve of enriched flour crackers and enjoy your heritage like a true patriot.
