“Simply put, we are a failed and ruined people/ incapable of even silence. We are equal to nothing./ The earth given to us, we have lost even that. Big eaters of America, I join you in your parade.†So proclaims Beckman (Shake
) in his fifth collection, a searching dramatic monologue that relentlessly pursues knowledge while remaining attentive to disorder. Though he joins America in its parade, he also maintains his distance from the masses and delivers “a speech befitting the wayward traveler stilled only/ by glory's momentum.†Sometimes deeply dissatisfied with, and sometimes in complete awe of the natural (and social) landscape, this inspired speaker argues with himself as much as he does with his country, making a wholehearted plea for unity in the face of folly and predicament. Beckman scrutinizes the human tendency to organize and systematize, and offers an uncanny ode to entropy (“Architects of the world/ enclose me not tonight in your thoughtful rooms,/ let me fall down the unbuilt hill, let me die/ in the inconsiderate sun.â€) In what may be his best book, Beckman wistfully takes to the road and does the incredible work of writing poems full of desire, for a world in the midst of radical upheaval. (Apr.)
