Wit and surprise It's not often in the world of Amazonia that one finds a work of art that has received five star reviews from every reviewer. But Sarah Manguso truly deserves the accolades. Her poems are sinewy and funny and unpredictable (until you memorize them). What a deft hand she has in crafting these gems. I agree with the reviewer who lamented so much of modern poetry's self-seriousness. Well, you won't find that here. And yet, for me she is a poet to be taken very seriously, if you know what I mean.
Manguso's Startling Debut This book has become on of my favorites in my poetry collection. Manguso's intelligent, moving poetry is full of dark, fall-on-your-knees humor. Her work almost casually walks the line between dispair and hope, even lending the reader a smile and a curtsey. The collection is stunning, utterly beautiful. She is a bright new talent and I look forward to seeing her work evolve.A razor eye and a grammaphone ear Manguso uses words like lasers to clear away the gunk on the coffin door of your whole soul, so you can finally lift the lid and see that the only thing inside are a few charcoal drawings. She plummets into the abyss confident she'll have time to finish her note before she hits bottom, translating every indecipherable obscenity on the ancient cave walls as she falls into perfect English. This is poetry as flashlight, it's only when you turn it on you realize you were alone in cobwebbed darkness all this time. And check out that author photo -- she's a fox, too! I mostly read novels but was very glad to discover Sarah Manguso's poetry. Her writing is an unexpected combination of dream and epigram -- you wouldn't believe that it'd work, but it does, beautifully. Instead of treating the self as a sump to maunder through, Magnuso tweezes it off the bone bit by bit and eyes it with a loupe, with the reader looking over her shoulder. She obviously loves langauge but is no show-off; nor does she ever become cryptic or precious. Her poetry is clear, serious, and lancingly funny. And sad. "That's a lot of dead bear" -- that line gets me every time.She knows what she's talking about Manguso's voice is conversational and declaratory, seeking--and finding--truth in luminous, mysterious metaphors. "Sometimes I think I understand the way things work/ and then I find out that on Neptune it rains diamonds," Manguso writes in "Beautiful Things." She has learned much about the way things work, and she has much to teach us. She is unafraid to make the important discoveries. Reading her poems is traveling on an important, sometimes frightening, journey with a trusted guide.
