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Tony Tost’s deft, engaging book of prose-poetry, Invisible Bride (Louisiana State University Press, 2004) was awarded the 2003 Walt Whitman Award, judged by C. D. Wright. Fluidity and wit are the most immediate virtues of this collection, which only a reader wholly unfamiliar with contemporary poetry would find at all difficult of access. The range of tone is not great, but the modulations are quite subtle: his characteristic tongue-in-cheek, insouciant tone can quickly turn surprisingly sincere, even poignant. One of Tost’s other characteristic modes is the “mock-translation,” the poem that appears to mimic the slightly elevated and unidiomatic register of translations from modern French poetry. Here is the opening paragraph of the book: Who shall say what one’s Vision has to offer another? Yet, in many cases, Vision’s path is presented with such singular exactness of fidelity that we are perfectly safe in submitting the minds of even the youngest children to its influence: the gatehouse will hold firm and keep out the invaders, and the fires shall illuminate the archers manning the battlements. This style here is not dissimilar to the prose of Ashbery’s Three Poems. Elsewhere, in “Winter Outtakes (2)” Tost parodies William Carlos Williams: A man goes from tree to tree, threatening to chop down each. “I am sure that this fruit will be heavy with fruit next spring,” he says, “as I am heavy with grief this day.” This poem triangulates “The Bare Tree,” “The Widow’s Lament in Springtime,” and Kenneth Koch’s “Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams,” but would still be effective for a reader who might have missed the intertextual play. Tost is an amiable poet, and usually leaves out the parts that readers like to skip (to paraphrase a remark by novelist Elmore Leonard). Apparently nobody ever told him that poetry was supposed to be dull and inconsequential. The poems that I found the most memorable include a witty essay on playground safety, a hilarious investigation of sonambulism, a monologue by a burglar, and a political commentary on the 1990s, when “Satisfaction was imposed on every American.” I also enjoyed the moments of greater “sincerity,” when the mask of irony was temporarily set aside. Some of the shorter prose-poems seemed less compelling: My shadow is down there in the water, making soft little noises. I was holding the demon’s hand. That is why I always enter the room dancing. My song has alternated between the song of a dog tied to a post and the song of linear subordination. I’m working on a new song. It goes, “I won’t hurt you, I won’t hurt you, I won’t hurt you.” There’s nothing particularly objectionable about this, but it somehow lacks the memorable quality of some of some of the longer, better-developed pieces. Invisible Bride is divided into six sections, and invites a sequential reading as well as the usual “skipping around” approach that many readers of poetry employ. In either case, there are many more successful than unsuccessful poems. In some ways, Tony Tost’s poetry seems quite typical of work done by many younger poets today. One might find similar prose-poems by other poets in journals such as Fence, or in Octopus, which Tost himself co-edited. Where Tost distinguishes himself from the crowd, in my view, is in his more natural, unforced humor and in his desire to engage his readers. Invisible Bride is a wonderfully likeable book that offers no obstacles to whole-hearted enjoyment and enthusiasm.
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| © Jonathan Mayhew |
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