Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Notes Above Water: Selected Poems

Notes Above Water: Selected Poems

Wright, Kirby

Paperback

General Poetry

ISBN10: 097410678X
ISBN13: 9780974106786
Publisher: Lemon Shark Press
Published: Jan 23 2014
Pages: 156
Weight: 0.52
Height: 0.36 Width: 5.98 Depth: 9.02
Language: English
The poems in NOTES ABOVE WATER are concerned with the lives of suburbanites and their secret sufferings-alienation, boredom, infertility, and infidelity. Reoccurring family members are threaded through the book, particularly dysfunctional parents who seem oblivious to the pain they're inflicting on their kids. There's excruciating conflict between the narrator and June Spoon, an ice queen narcissist jealous of her children's relationships and marriages. And Dadio, who rarely spares the rod, uses his offspring to vent his frustrations as a high-powered attorney. The abusive past haunts the narrator as an adult, where he struggles with self-flagellation trying to make his marriage work. There's beach poetry set in Hawaii and the coastal city of Oceanside, California. The alienation theme continues on the sand and beachfront parking lots, where surfers molest underage girls in vans and beachgoers kill boredom with booze and music. In the end, after a long day of sun, west coasters return to their cars and trucks feeling as isolated and alone as when they first sunk their beach umbrellas into the sand. Dark humor abounds, such as the narrator trying to coax his sister out of isolation by insisting there's no reason why she can't maintain her reclusive lifestyle even while be hitched; he points out the bonus of catered meals whipped up by her chef of a husband. There's hope too in these poems-the narrator gets a crush on the girl with the green violin and fantasizes about living with this sexy fiddler in an Irish cottage overlooking the sea. Wright gives his poems plenty of space on the pages, allowing them room to breath. This creates a more intimate space between reader and poet, as if you're reading intimate notes scrawled in a journal. Lots of experimentation with form in this book, including pantoums, flash, prose poetry, couplets, and quatrains. A great read for the poet in us all.

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