Among the Names

by Maxine Chernoff

Poetry. "Among the Names clicks along, making fast connections, which in turn create a vast and layered network--in short, an economy. Exploring the complexities of "the gift," Chernoff's is an economy of the uncanny. It's a collection that makes things spring to sight"--Cole Swensen. Be sure to check out Maxine Chernoff's other books, including EVOLUTION OF THE BRIDGE, WORLD & SOME OF HER FRIENDS THAT YEAR, all available from SPD.

Genres: Poetry

63 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2005

Reviews

[Patricia Murphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

These are not the easiest poems for me to read. It's about me, not about the poems. They are messy in ways that I don't understand. There are choices in white space, punctuation, capitalization, and syntax that make very little sense to me so my impulse is to clean them up. But maybe that's the point. Maybe that delivers the poet to moments that might not have been reached. And for me, the shining moments in these poems are:

"Do dogs misunderstand or are they too honest?"

"She seeks to gain health by punching a saint repeatedly"

"the slash between breasts"

"He worked alone making small invisible bombs"

"light learns its proper name"

"they took a photo in the whale's belly"

"don't blame that which she loved for its reticence."