From Publishers Weekly
In his first book, Burns seems to grope for a subject among poems about wildflowers, motorcycles, unearthed Indian burial sites, and family and friends, as well as several short dramatic dialogues. A moodiness prevails, as the writer tries to persuade readers into an emotion. Some of the poems end with inarticulate longing, and seem to do so inevitably, without the surprise or revelation another writer might bring to the verse. Instead, we're given a generality: "the world you know can never be the same." Burns escapes this template in "Store Boy," "On Lickpond Ridge" and others, making room for the reader with images that allude rather than dictate. And in "For What It's Worth" he really cuts loose, writing of an "addled heart" and observing: "It's like being hired/ to spy on myself." At times he seems to write without caring much about what he himself might feel, as though free of his own microscope. And language in other parts of the book is not as direct. When Burns writes formally-in his villanelle, "Hunting Wildflowers," for example-his rhymes sometimes force unnatural line breaks; pausing on the last word of a line or stanza can hinder ordinary rhythms of speech.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
After The Annual Convention
Back To The Ozarks
Beginnings
Cooking Breakfast After Reading Robert Penn Warren
A Drunken Satyr From Newton County Tells How He Met ...
Estranged
Farm Road 93
The First Time
For An Old Pear Tree
For My Son, Who Wants To Know What I Think About God
For What It's Worth
Form And Theory
Gigging On The West Cache
Going To See The 15th-century Indian Head Pots ...
Hunting Wildflowers
I Said It Could Have Been
In My Garden
Last Night
Matriarch
My Handle
New Year's
On Lickpond Ridge
On The Fifth Day Of The Search
Pick And Roll
Reconstruction
Shattering
Speaking Mexican
Store Boy
The Story I Tell My Children About The New Jesus
Stroke
Sunday Evening, 1962: 1
Sunday Evening, 1962: 2
The Teacher
This Side Of The River
Trying To Know
The Urban Stream
Visiting The Southern Hills Pool At The End Of The Season
The Widow On Route Three
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®
Back To The Ozarks
Beginnings
Cooking Breakfast After Reading Robert Penn Warren
A Drunken Satyr From Newton County Tells How He Met ...
Estranged
Farm Road 93
The First Time
For An Old Pear Tree
For My Son, Who Wants To Know What I Think About God
For What It's Worth
Form And Theory
Gigging On The West Cache
Going To See The 15th-century Indian Head Pots ...
Hunting Wildflowers
I Said It Could Have Been
In My Garden
Last Night
Matriarch
My Handle
New Year's
On Lickpond Ridge
On The Fifth Day Of The Search
Pick And Roll
Reconstruction
Shattering
Speaking Mexican
Store Boy
The Story I Tell My Children About The New Jesus
Stroke
Sunday Evening, 1962: 1
Sunday Evening, 1962: 2
The Teacher
This Side Of The River
Trying To Know
The Urban Stream
Visiting The Southern Hills Pool At The End Of The Season
The Widow On Route Three
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®
