As is

As is by James Galvin (Copper Canyon, 2009) - thanks Kay for lending it to me!

I don't think I've realised before how much Mr Galvin has influenced my own stuff (we had an intense but brief relaionship last year). I kind of thought I'd become some kind of Michael Palmer clone, but I think a lot of my stuff is actually closer to Galvin, like in the first poem of the book, A tiny yet nonexistent etching as seen through a magnifying glass:

Everything is drawn

With excruciating precision:

The grape arbor sheltering the children

Who are playing with a pig bladder,

The thatched roof of the cottage,

The boat pulled up on dry

Land, a curving jetty.

[...]

Similar tone, rhythm and enjambment I think. Although his control of register and syntax is so much better than mine.

So anyway, digging this book, and it seems like a nice return to existential form after X. Also I just noticed there is a poem at the back set in Wellington. I feel like I helped write it! Although the last time I painted a house I listened nonstop to The Brothers Johnson. Fuck that house was painted with LOVE.