publishers weekly review


The Nervous Filaments David Dodd Lee.
Four Way (UPNE, dist.), $15.95 (96p)
ISBN 978-1-884800-05-4

Lee's fourth book is hard to interpret, but hard
to ignore: “a priest shouldn't have a tattoo of Darth
Vader,” the title poem remarks, before depicting
“little silver penguins holding trays.” Exclamatory,
vivid, bizarre, and sometimes redolent of the surrealists,
Lee's single-line stanzas and sentence fragments suggest
a life impossible to sustain, a set of emotions and
recollections unmoored from any life story that might
serve as guide: “They shredded the moon again she said
about the falling snow.” Lee remains conscious of region
and locale (“just think of the Midwest/ as a giant Nativity
Scene”): yet his ambitions, and his targets, seem to take
in almost everything he can see. A style that some readers
find disorienting will seem to others all too familiar;
it's not clear whether his disorienting style is really
anything new. And yet Lee's sharp way with single images,
single sentences, almost convulsively fleeting visions,
should not be denied. (Mar.)