cover image Now We're Getting Somewhere

Now We're Getting Somewhere

David Clewell. University of Wisconsin Press, $19.95 (85pp) ISBN 978-0-299-14410-4

In Clewell's (Blessings in Disguise) sixth book, poems are built from conjectures about the world. His method is akin to talking out loud; he invents stories like the ones we may have used to avoid a scolding in grade school or to impress a first date. Unfortunately, when he writes his riffs on these subjects, Clewell's voice can't keep from telling us that ``we might feel'' and he ``must have meant'' and ``we have to feel.'' If the poems' meanings are over-determined in this way, it's because Clewell seems to guess about things his feelings alone can't fathom. His imaginings, then, have little of the texture of life observed firsthand. Clewell's love poems, though, are successful, delivering an intimacy that elsewhere may escape him. There is good writing here, and strong prose segments in a 21-page poem. The book as a whole, though, risks too much with its off-beat subjects, and Clewell ventures an off-handed virtuosity that is difficult to pull off. (Dec.)