From the Bookshelf: Brian Henry - Lessness

Now that time is opening up a little for me, I can get caught up on my reading. A lot of books have been sitting here (some for some time) patiently. I’ve opened a few at random here and there, but finally, now, I’m going to be able to really read them (before I go on a big summer buying spree with money I don’t have).

Systematically, then:

Paul Legault, The Madeline Poems
Dana Levin, Sky Burial
Jon Davis, Preliminary Report
Emily Kendal Frey, The Grief Performance
Sommer Browning, Either Way I’m Celebrating
Zach Savich, The Firestorm
Paula Closson Buck, Litanies Near Water
Melissa Kwasny, The Nine Senses
Lily Brown, Rust or Go Missing
Daniel Khalastchi, Manoleria
Sarah Goldstein, Fables
Alexandria Peary, Lid to the Shadow
Susan Briante, Utopia Minus
Joshua Corey, Severance Songs
David Hadbawnik, Field Work
Dan Boehl, Kings of the F**king Sea
Tony Trigilio, Historic Diary
Martha Silano, The Little Office of the Immaculate Conception
Derek Mong, Other Romes
Kevin Prufer, In a Beautiful Country
Trey Moody, Climate Reply
Dora Malech, Say So
Shane McCrae, Mule
Sarah Maclay, Music for the Black Room
Christopher Kennedy, Ennui Prophet
Sarah Vap, Faulkner’s Rosary
Crystal Curry, Our Chrome Arms of Gymnasium
Samuel Amadon, Like a Sea
Kirsten Kaschock, A Beautiful Name for a Girl
Brian Teare, Pleasure
Karla Kelsey, Iteration Nets
Sandra Doller, Chora

Today I’m reading Brian Henry’s Lessness:

Even / Even

Is there anything not broken,
any part not about to break?
The question snaps. The line
cracks where it should be whole.
The chair in splinters, the sidewalk
in tatters. Bodies in pieces.
Because of the weight? gravity
& inertia yanking everything
apart? Everything belongs in pieces,
earth says, you try to hold everything
together, always have, & still
you fail, always will, your failure proof
that rot is too advanced for you, too far
ahead, or down, like strata, too patient,
like a fossil, which you collect & kill
in the collecting. Even your dust
shatters. Even your air.