ARRAY(0x1d15f98)
Drew Milne, . . ARRAY(0x19cead8), $10 (70pp) ISBN 978-1-930589-09-4
The Scottish-born, Cambridge-based Milne is not yet 40, yet he supplies plenty of fiercely intelligent material, fueled by acutely measured prosody and an array of dazzling syntactic maneuvers, for a selected. Milne, editor of the journal and press Parataxis, puts on a face of aggro-modernistic glee while parodying 21st-century political quagmire. The verbal pyrotechnics can move so quickly one might miss the cartoonish humor ("tuned to fine leaves of/ ouch") mixed with lyrically inclined moments of over-the-top satire: "Die,/ die, my text,/ like any temp or co-worker/ left for dead/ amid the station-wagons/ of the photocopier." Milne's poems refuse to allow a reflective, single voice to stand in for universal suffering and provide expressive catharsis—"I am aid pack, cash-crop and pearl mint tax heaven"—a position that connects his work with strains of the Language and New York Schools, as well with J.H. Prynne and other Cambridge poets.
Reviewed on: 05/27/2002
Genre: Nonfiction