Present: Poems

A collection of twenty-four poems that range from comic to classical, with one prose piece, "A Goya Reproduction," in which the author remembers how a library book introduced him to fine art

The poems that open Corn's seventh volume continue the theme of his previous work, the well-received Autobiographies (LJ 11/1/92). Whether writing in free verse or magically weaving in strict rhyme patterns, Corn combines memory and imagination into long, meditative poems that digress but never lose our interest. Carefully, he is coming to terms with the past, exploring how the small town in south Georgia that frustrated the child shaped the urban artist he is today. Corn is among those who, as in these words he translates from the Russian poet Marina Temkina, "feel nostalgic not for a place/ but for the comfort of being at one." If this book is problematic, it is because his identification with artists who have influenced him veers toward the intellectual rather than the emotional, a long way from the charming figure of the young boy discovering Goya captured in the volume's long prose piece. Highly recommended. [For a review of Corn's book on prosody, see p. 91, and for his first novel, see LJ 3/15/97.?Ed.]?Rochelle Ratner, formerly Poetry Editor, "Soho Weekly News," N.Y.
-?Rochelle Ratner, formerly Poetry Editor, "Soho Weekly News," N.Y.
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