The Book of Funnels

Rating:
Summary: a rich poetic quest
Review: Christian Hawkey's rich, striking poems have the vivid oddness of dreams, exploring landscapes seen askew but quite precisely, grasping details to fix the fleeting world in place. Many are small quest narratives, in which the speaker wanders through half-familiar terrain ("I woke on the banks of the Connecticut,/it could have been the Tigris") in search of something that he might not recognize were he to find it: a face which is his but not all his, a cold rinsed night which makes him feel at home. He looks and listens and the landscape advances at his approach. These are territories well worth getting lost in.

Rating:
Summary: Finally Something Different & True
Review: It's been a long time since I got this excited over a newly published book of poems, and I read a lot of them. I raced through it (but will go back to savor), feeling sure I'd find something false, too-cutesy-clever, or boring. That didn't happen! None of the currently fashionable ultra-coolness here---at the same time, a unique and believable voice. Gasp-making images. A beating heart. Nerve endings. Mysteries. Word-love. Hallelujah!