Review
Rogers has received numerous awards and grants for her work, including an NEA Grant and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Her poems have appeared in Prairie Schooner, Kayak, the Southern Review, the American Poetry Review, and the Chicago Review. Legendary Performance is her third collection of poetry. Rogers' work in Legendary Performances is conversational and processional; each poem is a display of herbs, flowers, vines, and insects that sustain the adventures of a group of playful but detached personae. Although the title is meant to convey the performance of the aforementioned group, it unselfconsciously suggests an embarrassingly boastful attitude about the poetry within. In "The Study of the Splinter Expem" Rogers offers a telling commentary on her own poetics. The poem details splintering in its various senses, investing the force of its message in a version of "reality" splintered by the forces of nature and the "action of analysis itself." Death is the "coveted state" in which object and idea form a "perfect union." As a poet, Rogers' understanding of the discursive aspects of reality and of her own enterprise are marginally felt. In 'The Mystery of Union," the force of the poem is concentrated in the promise of the inherent eroticism of '~naked boys and naked ponies" as a symbol for the "invisible message of an earth devoid / of mounted motion." The poems conduct examinations for telling images or moments of quiet but weighted anticipation and are best read, not spoken, since Rogers' lines pivot on the notational consistency of a reflective and silent prose. -- From Independent Publisher
The Accounting
After Dinner
Albert, Standing In The Forest At Night, Asks Himself
Aspects Of Unity
Being Remembered
The Clockmaker And The Toymaker Are Friends
The Creation Of Sin
The Documentation Of Absence
Effort To Eliminate Ignorance: Birdwatching
Entomological Research
The Evolution Of Freedom
The Facts Of The Earth
A Fortnight To Remember
Gentlemen Of Leisure
How The Whale Forgets The Love Of Felicia
Locating The Source Of Intention
The Love Of Enchantment: Felicia Was Kissed ...
The Mirror Of Pierrot
A Modicum Of Decorum
The Mystery Of Union
The Myth: Raison D'etre
Naked Boys On Naked Ponies
One In Three
The Pursuit As Solution
The Revelation Of The Willed Hallucination
A Seasonal Tradition
Seminar
The Shape Of Sorrow
Sight And Sound
The Structure Of Sustenance
The Study Of The Splinter Expert
The Truth Of The Matter
The Well-wisher From Half-way Around The World
The Witness Of Death
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®
The Accounting
After Dinner
Albert, Standing In The Forest At Night, Asks Himself
Aspects Of Unity
Being Remembered
The Clockmaker And The Toymaker Are Friends
The Creation Of Sin
The Documentation Of Absence
Effort To Eliminate Ignorance: Birdwatching
Entomological Research
The Evolution Of Freedom
The Facts Of The Earth
A Fortnight To Remember
Gentlemen Of Leisure
How The Whale Forgets The Love Of Felicia
Locating The Source Of Intention
The Love Of Enchantment: Felicia Was Kissed ...
The Mirror Of Pierrot
A Modicum Of Decorum
The Mystery Of Union
The Myth: Raison D'etre
Naked Boys On Naked Ponies
One In Three
The Pursuit As Solution
The Revelation Of The Willed Hallucination
A Seasonal Tradition
Seminar
The Shape Of Sorrow
Sight And Sound
The Structure Of Sustenance
The Study Of The Splinter Expert
The Truth Of The Matter
The Well-wisher From Half-way Around The World
The Witness Of Death
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®
