Di Piero, W.S. Skirts and slacks; poems.Random House, Knopf. 66p. c2001.0-375-709428. $15.00. SA Di Piero's seventh volume of poetry centers on a sense of mystery, the confusion of confronting uncertainty in precise and specific terms. He warns us against the simplistic sim·plism n. The tendency to oversimplify an issue or a problem by ignoring complexities or complications. [French simplisme, from simple, simple, from Old French; see simple and obvious: "All life I is hidden life. Don't believe / everything you hear." And he questions. "what certainty / in the body at its end?/And between here and there?" His diction is direct and clear and his poems are filled with concrete details that ring true and familiar, "green clabber clab·ber n. Chiefly Southern, Midland, & Western U.S. Sour, curdled milk. Also called regionally thick milk. tr. & intr.v. clab·bered, clab·ber·ing, clab·bers To curdle. I scumming puddles alongside the train, / then brickyards banked on body shops, / homeless trackside track·side n. The area near a track, especially a racetrack. nappers under trees,/ ditchwater where shopping carts come to drink..." Yet Di Piero himself is always wary, slightly skeptical of the material world, consistently being pulled toward some "uncertainty where/I feel most at home...." In a humble and honest way Di Piero avoids resorting to easy answers. Even in the writing that helps give his concepts form, he is resigned to perplexity perplexity - The geometric mean of the number of words which may follow any given word for a certain lexicon and grammar. . For himself he says, "Take away whatever you want,/but deliver me to derangements/of sweet, ordered, derelict words." For the rest of us (abuse) for The Rest Of Us - (From the Macintosh slogan "The computer for the rest of us") 1. Used to describe a spiffy product whose affordability shames other comparable products, or (more often) used sarcastically to describe spiffy but very overpriced products. 2. he offers hope for some "heaven that falls and fits/ this earth. These house rows, backyards, / the dog paths worn into the grass,/the sandbox A restricted environment in which certain functions are prohibited. For example, deleting files and modifying system information such as Registry settings and other control panel functions may be prohibited. and its twisting swings/empty where the children were just now/before they ran behind the kites,/running from us and our feeble facts..." This collection, like Di Piero himself and the rest of us, "take[s] what's given and work[s]/with that. The rest is grace." James Beschta, Barre, MA |
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