The Middle Ages

by Roger Fanning

A new collection from a Whiting award and National Poetry Series winner. Thomas Lux has called Roger Fanning "an American original...[whose] poems are so pure, so piercing, so simple, so distilled that reading him is like taking a drunk-with-language dive into a moonlit lake on a night you believe you will live forever!" Fanning writes surprising and evocative poems that are filled with humor and ingenuity; Mary Karr says he "tunes us in to those minuscule instants of revelation that can keep life from being a long zombie convention." This new collection of poems, Fanning's first in more than ten years, in part chronicles a period of time when he suffered a break with reality, and continues his investigations into the drudgeries, the disappointments, and the joy of our daily lives.

Genres: Poetry

112 pages, Paperback

First published March 27, 2012

Reviews

[Sanpaku · Rating 5 out of 5]

9/10.
It resonated a lot with me.
First quarter and third quarters were both subpar.
It feels nostalgic.

[Joseph · Rating 1 out of 5]

The author's note asks the reader to determine which poems were written before "the poet's break with reality." Although I do not want to be cruel to the author and his experience, these poems are digressive, free-associative phrases focused on four letter words, fixations on bodily secretions and lead to many poems that verge on either banal or incomprehensible. Here is a sample from "Fun": "Fun to fork, fun to spoon./Fun to garbanzo bean//Fun to taste the bluewhite breast milk/ Fun: fellatio!/Fun: cunnilingus (a little less fun)./Fun to hear sounds the deaf make during sex." Not fun: this collection. Mr. Fanning should hope William Logan doesn't review this collection.

[C. Varn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Highly digressive and focused on banal and bodily, Fanning's poetry here is both manic and ironic. More humorous than his prior works, his focus on things like bodily fluids and aging may make certain readers uncomfortable. Yet Fanning still has some of the music and wry observation of his earlier works there as well as inclusion of debris from popular culture that characterized his earlier books such as "Homesick." This volume does seem to showcase anxieties much more. Ultimately, Fanning's work here is not for everyone, but there are still solid poems and insights in the collection.