Comma in the Ear

by Gene Frumkin

"Our time becomes a complex fragmentation of systems, a fading recollection of the bits and pieces we had thought to constitute our histories and the hopeful proposals of our human significance we had attempted. This consummate masterwork is an acknowledgment and use of all these testifying echoes, locked in turn with the things our adamantly common world cannot find place to put down, Gene Frumkin's interweaving narratives are reflective, singular yet engaged, casually simple, but also intensely thoughtful of that spinning, refractive world he would so tell. If there can now be one story which speaks of all, one person compounded of our divisive genders and agencies, that "everyone" is here. The voices of these extraordinary poems make a place intensively present, irresolvable and yet so endlessly insistent. As he writes in the preface, '. . . if the world is the case, as it no doubt is, then language must serve as its imagination. . . .Language can be a floor and a ceiling, even while the walls tremble." The genius of this work is Frumkin's pledge to that transforming power."—Robert Creeley

139 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1990

Reviews

[George · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gene Frumkin's most experimental book, Comma in the Ear is a remarkable achievement on all counts. His grasp of the complexity of language is far-reaching, and his ear is impeccable.