Shells (Yale Series of Younger Poets, Volume 93)

A collection of poems that celebrate food and sex, describe the dangers inherent in them both and the ways in which food can serve to hide and reveal feelings about relationships, and discuss the shells that people build around themselves, hoping for protection but finding only a place to hide

[A] powerful debut. . . . [Arnold's] book contains, like a brilliant shell, its own marvelous balance of fluidity and form.

As subjects, cast-offs, or figurative devices, Arnold marshals mussels, crabs, scallops, clams and barnacles. In "Little Shrimp" he imitates the involutions of spira mirabilis, and narrates a night in a Spanish "bullfight bar," recycling the words "camar?nes," "pick" and "black eyes" as "Camar?n de la Isla," "Pick-/Me-Up" and "black light." Such moments of facile male desire, in all its guises, drive the book: a "Great dark man" ("his hand around the glass/ is dark with fur") wields a noirish knife; a "Merman" requires "all the covers/ kicked off to accommodate me"; an elegy for Joy Division's Ian Curtis praises "the ardor of a Bonaparte, a F?hrerA." A circumspect but not entirely unapproving examination of fleshy violence and bravado, "The Power Grip" contains directions for cunnilingus; "For a Cook" adds semen to an eggy alfredo sauce, then hair, and blood, and oil from the skin. The "weird housekeeping" of a "Hermit Crab" suggests Arnold's own watchful metric economiesAhis varied stanza forms create a rigid external structure, while the subjects wriggle beneath. But their hard control often yields to blurry, colloquial human voice: "You say You made that up. You say That's sick./ You say The things men think of are so cruel." Readers will find Arnold's pearly conceits hard to resist, but for all their inspired technique, they offer little beyond the masculine clich?s (straight and otherwise) they examine. As W.S. Merwin's first selection for the Yale Younger Poets series, this book is a disappointment.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

paper 0-300-07910-9 W.S. Merwins first selection for the Yale Series of Younger Poets bodes well for his tenure as judge: he admires Arnold for his simple ability to give enjoyment in poems about the pleasures of food and sex, which Arnold celebrates (often together) with all the indulgence of a pansexual gourmand. In graceful, fluent verse thats formal without drawing attention to its technical expertise, Arnold saves his transgressions for his subject matter: he memorializes a cook who masturbates into a dish returned by a customer (For a cook); he instructs in cunnilingus while eating raw shellfish; and advises on proper locker-room behavior at the gym, despite an interest in others bodies (Locker room etiquette). If the body is like food, and vice versa, then enjoying both involves risks: the nausea of bad shellfish, for example, and AIDS, which are linked in Hot, a long narrative about a friend who loves spicy food but whos lost his taste with illness. Living with it makes things more explicit: its a short, bleak counterpoint of two men nursing each other till death. Food also serves as a way to avoid difficulties: lovers joke about artichokes rather than give voice to feelings (Artichoke); and, in the narrative Transparent, during a painful Christmas dinner with his family, they gorge on seafood rather than confront the ghosts of the past. Throughout the volume the shellfishs exterior becomes the controlling metaphor for the armor we build around ourselvesa smooth exterior much like the expert meters that house Arnolds disturbing thoughts. A wit born of excess leads to some to negligible poems about merpersons (not maids) and eccentric collectors, but also to moving elegies. A piquant debut. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

This extremely accomplished first volume presents difficult poems, both in form and subject matter. They revolve around the hardened, supposedly protective shell; instead of feeling safe, however, the living creature cowers within. "Freud thought/ the brain developed from the skin, not/ to admit sensation but to shut it out." Seamlessly, the focus turns to people. Flavors and recipes remind Arnold of specific friends and lovers. But then, "friendships based on food are rarely stable." "Shore" is a little masterpiece, depicting friends joining friends, hinting at the severity of their lives and friendship but never telling, titillating the reader just enough to think more about his or her own life. Long and rambling, given structure as they are shoved into tight two- or three-line stanzas (reminiscent of a terrified clam or oyster), many poems teeter on the edge of loose rhyme. Shells is not an easy book to read. For those with the time and patience, it is not easily forgotten. Recommended for most poetry collections.ARochelle Ratner, formerly with "Soho Weekly News," New York
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.