Interrogations at Noon

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Summary: By a poet and critic of international note
Review: Dana Gioia is a poet and critic of international note who has authored a profusion of essays, reviews, translations, and anthologies. Now his own poetry is available to an appreciative public with the publication of Interrogations At Noon. Divination: Always be ready for the unexpected./Someone you have dreamed about may visit./Better clean house to make the right impression./There are some things you should not think about.//Someone you have dreamed about may visit./Is it an old friend you do not recognize?/There are some things you should not think about./Who is the stranger standing at the door?//Is it an old friend you do not recognize?/Notice the cool appraisal of his eyes./Who is the stranger standing at the door?/You sometimes wonder what you're waiting for.//Notice the cool appraisal of his eyes./Better clean house to make the right impression./You sometimes wonder what you're waiting for./Always be ready for the unexpected.

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Summary: another great collection from Gioia
Review: Gioia's latest collection is just as great as his first. He continues to show a wide range of skills (this time adding poems for music, including three songs from his wonderful libretto _Nosferatu_). The longer poem in the middle, Juno Plots Her Revenge, is a beautiful working of Seneca.

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Summary: DANA GIOIA'S "INTERROGATIONS AT NOON"
Review: New Formalist poet/critic Dana Gioia is known for his ground-breaking essay, "Can Poetry Matter?" This is his third book of poetry, and it is unlike anything produced by anyone else in America. Sicilian, Mexican and Native American in his ancestry, Gioia writes out of a "dark" Catholic sensibility--a sensibility which sees "the end of the world" in every sensuous detail around him. One of the advantages of Gioia's "formalism" is that it allows him to place deep personal experience within a form which, while deeply moving, simultaneously allows the reader to maintain a sense of esthetic distance. This tension between technical virtuosity and dark subject matter is reminiscent of the great nineteenth-century French poet, Charles Baudelaire--a Bohemian type who in other ways might be seen as Gioia's opposite. Full of strong poems by this native California--the strongest is probably "A California Requiem"--"Interrogations at Noon" is a fine introduction to one of the most thoughtful and original of American writers. Full of exquisite, mournful lines: "Think of the letters that we write our dead"; "We are like shadows the bright noon erases."

Rating:
Summary: DANA GIOIA'S "INTERROGATIONS AT NOON"
Review: New Formalist poet/critic Dana Gioia is known for his ground-breaking essay, "Can Poetry Matter?" This is his third book of poetry, and it is unlike anything produced by anyone else in America. Sicilian, Mexican and Native American in his ancestry, Gioia writes out of a "dark" Catholic sensibility--a sensibility which sees "the end of the world" in every sensuous detail around him. One of the advantages of Gioia's "formalism" is that it allows him to place deep personal experience within a form which, while deeply moving, simultaneously allows the reader to maintain a sense of esthetic distance. This tension between technical virtuosity and dark subject matter is reminiscent of the great nineteenth-century French poet, Charles Baudelaire--a Bohemian type who in other ways might be seen as Gioia's opposite. Full of strong poems by this native California--the strongest is probably "A California Requiem"--"Interrogations at Noon" is a fine introduction to one of the most thoughtful and original of American writers. Full of exquisite, mournful lines: "Think of the letters that we write our dead"; "We are like shadows the bright noon erases."