SELF AND SIMULACRA

"My course is rotten, I channel Monsieur Berryman who am not such a man./ Then let my form of address or my address withal place me/ zipcode not withstanding in the right relation to/ the world, the one that doesn't every second/ fetch the self its mirror or/ implore the self to clear/ its sinuses," runs the deft and humorous second stanza of the first poem of Waldner's new collection, suggesting the sort of mating of high diction and colloquial language that characterizes most of the poems of this book. The poet's tendency to parrot archaic idioms and to twist and divide normal syntax, something she occasionally does very well, is apparently supposed to reflect a self as simulacrum, since we are "directed to become isolate, profit-generating consumers, especially of others' meanings," as Waldner's endnotes state. So when the poet recalls the more playful metaphysical tones of the 17th century, it acts as a kind of counter-consumption of long discarded idioms: "Thus I am and know not how; I fall/ And fear falling as I fall. Call it implicit/ Sense: all flesh is grass not only/ Metaphoric." It's a justification that doesn't come all the way through here, and the colorless title helps little. Yet readers will find Waldner's channelings, some quite in key, enjoyable nonetheless. (Oct.)