cover image Flying Blind: Poems

Flying Blind: Poems

Sharon Bryan. Sarabande Books, $12.95 (72pp) ISBN 978-0-9641151-7-0

The table of contents begins with ""Abracadabra"" and ends with ""You Are Here,"" and the absence of a poem beginning with Z (and a few other letters in between) illustrates Bryan's view of language as an endlessly flexible tool to stave off final things, especially the last thing--death. In these inventive meditations on mortality and oblivion and speech, Bryan (Objects of Affetion) works through two themes about language: first, it always falls short of capturing the intractability of the world and our experience of it; second, it's how we know we are alive. Words ""keep the world/ just out of reach."" In tightly constructed three- and four-line stanzas, she searches for meaning beyond definition. Philosophical even when specific, these poems are playful. Sometimes, Bryan gets too caught up in her own game, as in ""Ode to the OED"" or ""Subjunctive,"" which may make readers wish she had taken more note of her early observation: ""because one word// leads to an other, it's easy/ to get carried away."" But most of the time, Bryan--a recipient of two NEA fellowships and winner of the Academy of American Poets Prize and a Discovery Award from the Nation--strikes a fine balance between rigorous conceptual conceit and the soul's lust for meaning. (Nov.)