Customer Reviews

O PARADISE

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Let me be honest. I just finished writing my opinion about Trowbridge's other book, Enter Dark Stranger, on Amazon.com. In that space I admit that I know Trowbridge, have known him for six years or thereabout. But I didn't decide to write that opinion, or this one, and give him five Amazon stars because of our acquaintance. What I noticed is that he needed - a crazy thing - someone's opinion on his book sites, because, you see, he's really one of the brightest, most genius poets this country has to offer, and I guess his readers took that for granted, that the general population already knew it, so an opinion or review might be redundant. Let me say a few honest things, as if I didn't know Trowbridge, nice guy that he is, complicated fellow, dark and wry and full of wit. First of all, this is a great book. I don't want to compare him with other known poets. This book, O Paradise, is a startling piece of writing in the sense that I was taken back to my own childhood and teen years in a sharp, almost uncomfortable way - but swept up with such poignant, gorgeous images, and memories - then rocked forward to another poem that affected me in that I thought of my own foolishness, and others', and morality, my shortcomings and the world's - and I was smiling and frowning on and off all the while; Trowbridge uses humor as a moral weapon. He takes our daily darkness and mocks it so that we laugh at ourselves. I can tell you, he's a melancholy man, and when he says something it sticks. He is also a man who writes with dead-on perfect exactness; his words race and stick across my heart, and gallop and halt over and through public life without error. What I love about Trowbridge the person and Trowbridge the poet is this constant: that he refuses to apologize for his concerns, that he is not sentimental, that he is not excessive. He never loses sight of the tragic.

What do you think of this; it's called The Dead:

They like it quiet,/slow-paced, no renters. Some/have practiced all their lives/for this, sitting stone still/at their desks, nodding/off in the BarcaLounger/after the network news. Nothing/could possibly be further/from their loamy minds than a call/to resurrection. They're tired of hearing,/of seeing, of trying to carry on/a halfway decent conversation. They keep their noses turned up,/even at the smell of fresh coffee./ And they don't take kindly/to square-peg types. Once a vampire/got transferred here by mistake,/complete with fifteen brides/right out of a Frederick's catalogue/and a record as long as your arm./The family trade went down/the toilet; even the police/steered clear, till the block committee/paid a call. He sold low/to the judge's daughter, a plain woman/who sleeps with the porch light on.

I've already written a review of this book (excerpt included under editorial reviews), but I can't help adding a few words here. Trowbridge is every bit as good a poet as, say, Billy Collins, and ought to be celebrated with equivalent hoopla. It's a mystery to me why he isn't better known. Trowbridge can be a very funny poet indeed, but to my mind his best poems are often the serious ones, plenty of which are featured here in what may be his strongest collection. His newest one, *Flickers*, is also excellent, and won't disappoint anyone who likes this one.

I read O Paradise last year, during my junior year of college, trying to escape the boredom of survey literature courses. I fell in love! Trowbridge is Mark Twain meets Sylvia Plath. He has such an honest simplicity that makes us understand how amazing and horrible life is and can be. Reading the poems in O Paradise remind me of the movie Stand By Me. He seems like a writer who puts importance on life and futiliy on materialism.
Of all of the poetry I've read, I have loved William Trowbridge more than any other. I recommend this collection of poems HIGHLY!