Paradiso Diaspora

The 46 poems of Yau's new collection take up the themes and procedures of his previous work—absurdist narration, visual art (Yau is a prolific art critic), the workings and failings of language—and also delve more intimately into meditations about and in the voice of Yau's daughter: "my name is Cerise Tzara Aschheim Yau/ I am your daughter/ I have been here a little over a month/ crying shitting eating sleepless restless." Using the collage techniques Yau (Borrowed Love Poems , 2002) mastered in the 1980s (derived, in part, from his mentor John Ashbery), these associative fables, fragmentary lyrics and stepped meditations attempt to deconstruct conventional language and put it back together with a surreal, often humorous slant. Pop culture references ("Is this really your final answer"), the conventions of other art forms ("Not only is the first shot of half-clothed women...") and surrealist setups ("...I am a duck, a tall duck, but a duck nevertheless") launch these poems toward unlikely conclusions. Though Yau has covered much of this territory in previous books, there are many fresh and remarkable moments, especially where Yau touches on the process of writing: "Don't write poems/ about yourself.// Don't call attention/ to your revelations// or make confessions/.../ ...don't excavate/ your mother's grief." (July)