Border Towns

“Race informs all categories,” says Giscombe (Into and out of Dislocation), and indeed race is a theme throughout this collection of essays. The selections fit very snugly within the borders of critical theory, but the author’s voice always shines through, and the subjects—lycanthropy, Bill Clinton’s impeachment—never quite surrender to the constricting ideological or theoretical framework that an academic might try to squeeze them into. It becomes evident that this book of nonfiction prose is really about Giscombe’s primary artistic practice: poetry. His writing on the subject is typically idiosyncratic: he connects a verse by William Blake to the memory of late nights spent watching trashy movies on cable. “Three Notes on Monsters” tackles film from a startlingly original vantage point. He also explores his own heritage as an African-American, using Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man as a touchstone; readers tackling Giscombe’s work would likely benefit from rereading the earlier text as well. This is a serious and funny book about the idea of expanding the reach of poetry to society’s liminal spaces—the titular border towns. (June)