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Reviews |
Description:
Frederick Seidel has the ability to capture the spirit of the historical moment--to be, as Rimbaud demands, "utterly contemporary." No poet since Robert Lowell has given us such a pithy, incisive view of the larger social and political world. To be sure, this is a poet who travels in rarefied circles, among the rich and powerful. Seidel recalls a visit to the set of Zabriskie Point, a cocktail party with Robert Kennedy, and the carnivorous age at Grace Mansion: "I remember the vanished days of the great steak houses. / Before the miniaturization in electronics. / When Robert Wagner was mayor and men ate meat." But he can move us, too, in poems like "Heart Art": A man is masturbating his heart out,
Swinging in the hammock of the Internet.
He rocks back and forth, his cursor points
And selects. He swings between repetitive extremes
Among the come-ons in the chat rooms.
But finally he clicks on one
World Wide Web Woman who cares.
It isn't entirely accidental if some of Seidel's poems read like screenplays, given that he makes his living writing them. Yet this most cinematic of poets is also capable of hitting the universal note. At once wise, bitter, laconic, and brutal, Frederick Seidel both deserves--and would amply reward--a wider readership. --Mark Rudman
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