Heritage Channeling

Hazelton continuedfrom previous page into the future, without a map. Zapruder's use ofclerestory, a variant ofclearstory , a windowed upper portion of a wall or building , illustrates one of the book's central concerns, that of trying to tell the "clear story," the true story, through secluded observation. Many of the poems use window or glass imagery that suggests a sort of static observation, such as in "Dream Job": "me in my snow globe / surrounded with rain / on Water Street by the sea." The book's primary concern is the prevalence ofsuffering in the world. Zapruder shows his own awareness ofthis trope in the poem "There is a Light," which addresses an Albanian all-night market. He begins with, "Whenever behind your windows I look / from my balcony down at you you are open," using inverted syntax to emphasize the act of looking. This market looks back, however, o solemn untamed maternal Albanian market why at this fucked time of night are you open locked within yourself and asking the same thing of me.... The story of the market becomes the story of the speaker watching the market: what pale green inside me memory dress now gives birth to the story of you giving birth to the story of me giving birth to my awe of you.... The births nest one inside the other, and reinforce the circularity of watching while emphasizing the intimacy of an ostensibly impersonal exchange (an insomniac's observation of an all-night grocery). Such intimacy is common to many of the poems, which, though often beginning in remote observation, move toward a sense of community, such as when a young mother leaving the market "looks up with her gaze and unlocks me." The book's primary concern is the prevalence of suffering in the world. Part three's "The Pajamaist" is an extended prose poem concerning a dream novel of the same name. In the world of this novel, suffering is studied as a science. The Pajamaist himself is "a tiny impossibly black dot of suffering" who can, via a blue pill and by sleeping in another's pajamas, take on the suffering of others. This act can only be accomplished in isolation, because "one can easily see / how observing the Throes ofthe Pajamaist must render in / the watcher new suffering, and fail to reduce anything." It's not difficult to read the Pajamaist as a metaphor for the poet, who must necessarily work in isolation and, by assuming the personas and sufferings of other people, wear their pajamas. Just as the end of"The Pajamaist" suggests that the transmission of suffering is an imperfect science, the book's poems increasingly question the solace offered by isolation. In the final section of poems, Zapruder still emphasizes observation, but there is less isolation, more community. The first poem, "Brooklyn With a New Beginning," seems to critique the previous poems for their isolation: For too long I have gone cycladic to sit an island in afternoon's sea staring'at the harpist carved from white stone. Instead, this poem emphasizes communion via observation: as when, observing teenagers on a playground, "in my window I smoke / with them and laugh / at death." The final poem, "Ándale Mono," seems to promise a return to interiority and isolation, as it ostensibly examines the typeface Ándale Mono. Yet this poem is a miniature of the book, first beginning in reflexive isolation and then expanding outwards, a motion that is presented almost as a surprise: for the first time today in Ándale Mono I drew my shoulders back and looked straight forward and slightly up. By the end, the speaker sees at least the possibility of stepping outside the self, for "just out of reach /of my dangling hand me lock was a tiny door." Rebecca Hazelton is currently a graduate student at Florida State's PhD program in creative writing. Herpoetry has been published in Salt Hill, RHINO, and Puerto del Sol. Heritage Channeling David Graham Wind in a Box Terrance Hayes Penguin http://www.penguin.com 112 pages; paper, $18.00 It is tempting to describe Terrance Hayes's new collection of poems by borrowing the title phrases from his...