The Old Woman, the Tulip, and the Dog

Ostriker (The Volcano Sequence) opens this cycle of persona poems with a quote from Gertrude Stein: “A very important thing is not to make up your mind that you are any one thing.” Each poem’s three stanzas correspond to the eponymous old woman, tulip, and dog, whose collective musings are riddled with philosophical mischief and lyrical insights about the body, desire, and time. Existential anxieties accumulate over the course of the collection, ranging from the glib (“Try to love the mutilated world/ said the old woman/ shopping with Visa/ for her granddaughter’s wedding dress,”) to the sincere (“what if evil men kidnap them/ what if they never return/ what if time decelerates and stops/ said the dog”). While the old woman and the tulip occupy the first two stanzas, the dog, placed as the final speaker in each poem, represents a grounded skepticism—a voice that is both wise and still self-consciously dog: “I try always to be obedient/ to do the pleasing thing/ in bed with them/ I don’t bounce around”; “Do you even know what love is/ said the dog and are you sure/ the grains of sand add up.” Ostriker offers an intriguing approach to revealing and playfully interrogating universal concerns. (Feb.)