Jonathan Brannen

As usual the blurbs on the back are completely overblown. Brannen does not illuminate " the zone of language that operates between" as Cole Swensen promises...in fact, language has very little to do with it. Yeah, there's certain qualities of speech being teased out, but come on. The book's construction (kind of a dual- or mirror-esque layout of 2 poems facing eachother) was tiring and honestly I think the whole book could have drastically improved if Brannen had simply dropped his conception of the book and started running. The writing was willing, but the writer was stubborn (or diligent, whichever way you want to look at it).… (mehr)