Gowanus Atropolis

Brolaski's debut stages a sprawling collision of post-punk, radical-queer spontaneity with rule-governed attention to language and speech: almost all Brolaski's poems combine obtrusively antiquated language, more or less Chaucerian Middle English, with new spellings and new words taken from rappers and from queer radical youth. "wanton until noon/ wel cd they speke englysshe// polymorphously it's the juice/ n I stand by my ambivalent sidekick," Brolaski writes (in "to be kush is not to be chronic"); elsewhere he sees a "wimp become hunk/ omfg in a pneumatic tube." The genderless pronoun "xe" ("xe is my enemigma/ & shall endure all privilege") and a succession of New York local references (starting with the Gowanus Canal of the title) announce Brolaski's allegiance to a defiantly independent, politically alert community; by far the longest poem here commemorates the experimental writer and gender activist kari edwards. Brolaski's staccato pacing and in-your-face treatments of sex and war demand an immediate enthusiastic attention, which they may not always repay; if "the seer wit understanding/ almost undercut hir prophecy," as Brolaski writes, these lines can seem to undercut themselves. Without their typographical oddities, they may seem less substantial than the work of Brolaski's peers. Nonetheless they are powerful utterances, symbols and actions that can both shock and delight; devotees of, for example, C. A. Conrad might find here exactly what they need. (Apr.)