Paul Violi: Selected Poems 1970–2007

Co-editors North and Towle have amassed a sweeping and multifarious selection of work from Violi (1944–2011), revealing how his “training as a magician was ordinary:/ Rigorous and unpleasant.” This treasury is organized chronologically, beginning with a cheeky, faux Bic Pen advertisement and ending with the grave acknowledgement that “I know the errors of my life.” Violi’s poems evince playfulness, joviality, and bemusement as they revel in absurdity. Unflappable, he possesses a “Heart as light as a hornet’s nest” and finds inspiration in “empty, limitless parking lots,/ the vast western skies above highways.” His uncanny ability to reach “places/ you can only get to on horseback” is expressed through a reframing of quotidian literary matter: he coaxes poems from, among other sources, an index, a riveting play-by-play of a horse race, and a police blotter riddled with curious reports, such as “winged children playing with fire.” These poems consistently amaze but never veer into implausible flights of fancy and always remind readers to celebrate the world. There is poetry in glimpsing “a grapefruit stuck in sheetrock,” and encountering such simple delights, he writes, is “easy/ And impossible—like stealing from yourself.” Violi’s poetry is profound, distinct, and perspicacious. [em](Oct.) [/em]