Always thoughtful, sometimes hard to follow, the New York–based poet and critic Welish (The Annotated 'Here'
) attracted smart if circumscribed attention to each of her five theoretically sophisticated previous books. The eight sequences here—seven short groups of stanzas or sentences, then a longer one called “From Dedicated To”—pursue familiar forms of self-consciousness about representation and naming, language, objecthood and signs. One anaphora-driven poem promises “a concordance/ of marks to future anthems.” A set of two-line poems based on texts found on public signage (“TAKE ONE,” “START HERE”) includes the advice: “ 'O Pen' of information abundantly lettered safeguards the mimetic 'collated pasts.' ” A prose poem deconstructs a note about a lost cat; several sequences, in their play with fonts and with white space, recall Mallarmé. The long closing sequence imagines the motion of meaning through mental space: “the sentence's/ coruscated encounter// with speech's simulated elevator/ including the coveted/ audio.” Such lines may puzzle before they inspire. Yet this book could be Welish's breakthrough, offering her clearest, most discursive works, proximate in their edgy attentions not only to art-world thinkers but to Anne Carson, whose more numerous fans might like Welish now. (Apr.)
