Threats instead of trees
By Michael Ryan
1974
First Published
4.00
Average Rating
66
Number of Pages
Line after line from ''Threats Instead of Trees,'' the 1974 collection that won Ryan the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award, suggests a harrowed ''I'm speaking again / as the invalid in a dark room,'' ''I'm afraid of marriage,'' ''So close you're defenseless, / you inhale your father's last breath,'' and so on. As in a horror movie, it's as though the speakers in these poems were shot in extreme close-up so that we can't see the threat just outside the frame. ''Threats Instead of Trees'' contains many poems of this kind, ones that recall the anxious utterances of Anne Sexton and the early Mark Strand, as well as a number of more open, discursive poems that look ahead to the narrative experiments of the 80's and beyond...Freud said that love and work are the cornerstones of our humanness. But love by itself comes up short in Ryan's poetry, and work is a subject he doesn't discuss. Poems make life bearable here, especially big long talky poems that include pain and fear but also surprise, joy, laughter, everything human. From the New York Times Book Section, "Moe, Larry and Bertolucci" By David Kirby May 2, 2004 David Kirby is the Robert O. Lawton distinguished professor of English at Florida State University. His most recent book of poems is titled ''The Ha-Ha.''
Avg Rating
4.00
Number of Ratings
17
5 STARS
41%
4 STARS
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3 STARS
29%
2 STARS
6%
1 STARS
0%
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