cover image The Journey: Poems

The Journey: Poems

David H. Rosenthal. Persea Books, $9.95 (67pp) ISBN 978-0-89255-181-1

``I gotta / hurry up and write,'' the hospitalized patient says in this collection's final section. Rosenthal ( Loves of the Poets ) was diagnosed with cancer in 1991. As the subjects of these new poems move back and forth between Spain and America, strength and weakness, the poet develops a persona that permits him to confront illness head-on. Anxiety is never far from the surface. In this context, even a memory of parting lovers hugging ``for dear life'' takes on more weight than it ordinarily would. But when the speakers of most poems become too emotional, they mask their feelings with hipster slang. Lying in bed tended by a woman, a man recalls a time when he almost drowned, then ``started swimming / for sweet golly-gosh.'' A potentially excellent poem beginning ``It's hard to lie still on a table / beneath glaring metal lights'' continues with well-observed, painful imagery, then ends abruptly with the speaker tapping his fingers to remembered jazz riffs. Such transitions stretch credibility. While one understands the need of a poet ``close to specterhood'' to write as much as possible, the few brilliant poems here are unfortunately buried in the clutter. (Dec.)