Disaster Zone

HEVIEW Miller continuedfrom previous page titles; the majority of the poems in Ornithologies are just as interested in tracking the poet's arriving thoughts as they are in telling a story or constructing a landscape. In this way, there's nearly as much Ashbery in Poteat's work as there is James Dickey. And though Charles Wright might immediately come to mind (since Poteat's meditations are often triggered by landscape), the way Poteat uses narrative in his poems is different enough from Wright as to avoid being derivative. Unfortunately, it's this mix of influences that occasionally causes Poteat to falter. At times, the poems' meanderings become distractingly digressive . And sometimes Poteat's earnest Romanticism requires a certain confidence that his attempts to capture the mind "in motion" belie. For example, when Poteat claims, "Representation is all we are in the end, I guess, and then some," his hedging undercuts the potential lyrical force of the assertion—though such hedging is well in line with the poem's meditative nature. Additionally, when Poteat ventures from the physical world into ekphrasis, primarily in the book's third section, the results are somewhat less convincing, since the poems feel a bit less personally urgent. Despite such occasional shortcomings, Poteat is clearly a talented, insightful, and moving poet who is involved in extending and diversifying the aesthetics of contemporary Southern poetry. What's more, Ornithologies consistently works to engage large philosophical and historical issues—something, I sometimes worry, not enough of Poteat's (and my) contemporaries do. Given the accomplishments of Ornithologies and the ambition of his work, I look forward to seeing where Poteat goes from here. Wayne Miller is the author ofOnly the Senses Sleep (New Issues), cotranslator oftheforthcoming I Don't Believe in Ghosts (BOA), by Albanian poet Moikom Zeqo, and editor, with Kevin Prüfer, ofThe New European Poetry (Graywolf). Miller teaches at Central Missouri State University and coedits Pleiades. Disaster Zone Stacey Gottlieb A Disorder Peculiar to the Country Ken Kalfus Ecco http://www. harpercollins.com 256 pages; cloth, $24.95 Two cartoonish sticks of dynamite, slim black cylinders capped by a single, wiry, red-tipped thread, stand center stage on the cover ofKen Kalfus's latest book—twin images meant to evoke entities already under siege at the novel's start. That's right: A Disorder Peculiar to the Country is part ofthe swiftly expanding first wave ofliterature borne ofthe events of 9/11, joining recent works like Jay Mclnerney's The GoodLife (2006), Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005), and John Barth's The Book of Ten Nights and a Night (2004), along with those from shores abroad, including notables like Ian McEwan's Saturday (2005) and Frédéric Beigbeder's Windows on the World (2003). Kalfus enters this arena with two story collections and a prior novel to his name, books that have earned him a reputation for fine, inventive prose that delights in skewering the absurd, particularly the politically bent. A Disorder Peculiar to the Country largely underscores these traits, as well as the notion that Kalfus is a writer to be reckoned with: a talented wordsmith and critical prankster, yes, but one that bears distinction; a voice that feels somehow vital; a barker's call of the now, arch and elegant by turns. Admirable attributes aside, though, the novel's tale of one New York couple's marital and moral implosion in the year following 9/1 1 falls prey to the very flaws one imagines Kalfus would have taken the most pains to avoid—frustrating interludes that pander to The Things This Book Wants to Say and the Parallels It Would Like to Draw between the cultural moment in question and the central narrative at hand, rough patches that distract from the quality and momentum of the highly entertaining, often engrossing passages in between. A Disorder Peculiar to the Country is, at base, a study in dissolution: it is the story of Joyce and Marshall Harriman's marital union's demise; of each Harriman's descent from embittered spouse to vengeful victim; and of the frayed states of our nation—condemning portraits of soul and psyche...