Items related to Theory of Devolution: POEMS (National Poetry Series)
Synopsis
With blazing wit and a searing language, David Groff writes fiercely of erosion and endurance in this stunning debut collection. Theory of Devolution resonates with the persistence of ruination, affectation, and the mysteries of the borders and shorelines we so uneasily inhabit. At turns fervent and elegiac, dishy and sly, these poems confront the effect of AIDS and HIV on a brotherhood that dealt firsthand with grief and loss and, later, the tenuous prospect of survival. Peopled with the spirits of dead gay men, uncertain lovers, mortal parents, and spectral friends and brothers, Groff's poems are unified by their preoccupation with what erodes us and what we can hold onto when life and love devolve.
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Reviews
"A star the size of the sun exploded yesterday/ 150 light years ago or away." In this first collection of his poetry, Groff (coauthor, The Crisis of Desire: AIDS and the Fate of Gay Brotherhood) understands his own insignificance in this frail universe, seen in the devolution of things: "the peony unpetaled over time." Still, he finds himself in the middle of it all, an articulate witness, a participant. These poems are reports from the hot center, hard and honest accounts of life in the midst of a sad and deadly nightmare. They confront the horrid effects of AIDS and HIV. They weigh grief and loss and calculate the tenuous prospect of survival. Talk of an "epidemic" and "crisis" has dropped down to a whisper. The ghosts of the dead populate these poems, and their stories give them voice, however fragile: "Even Ron's voice which I thought as sure/ and recurrent as a siren or Ella Fitzgerald/ decays into static." Each account is more harrowing than the last. Yet Groff loves "the whole idea of love," and it shows in his sweet and passionate imagery. He is sensitive but still objective, compassionate but not sentimental. From the raucous rituals of Fire Island to the settled and familial peace of Chelsea, Groff maps a world coming slowly undone, "like all of Fire Island we erode, a sandbar lessened into sand/ the water easily absconds with." For all contemporary poetry collections. Louis McKee, Painted Bride Arts Ctr., Philadelphia
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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