Complete Fragments

by Larry Fagin

Poetry. "While it is to be hoped that someone is busying themselves gathering the best of Larry Fagin's earlier uncollected poems—the 'Narrative Techniques' series (and related pieces), the 'Eleven Poems' for Philip Guston—we have Cuneiform Press to thank for publishing this long-in-the-works book of Fagin's wonderful prose poems. This latter form has been Fagin's primary focus as a poet for much of the last twenty years (it is, astonishingly, almost thirty years since his last collection, the seventeen-page Nuclear Neighborhood ), and it is a joy to have the fruits of his researches in this area collected between two covers at last. While Fagin well understands that 1+1=3, the greater mystery of his prose poems is that they are as much allover as additive works, their every sentence joined to its neighbors—and not only those—by sensible glue, which, here, is duplicitous in the very best alive as in thickly a-hum. Some of the poems are antic, yes, but every 'ka-pow' is balanced—maintained in exquisite suspension, in fact-by a corresponding 'pa-dow,' such that the overall arrangement of poems—which is perfect, as you might expect—constitutes a poem in itself. Other pieces contain elements that may, upon first glance, strike the reader as arch (there is such a thing as a 'Larryism'), but this material, more often than not, is inducted into the poem via an utter delicacy of selection as caress, show and tell reimagined as intimate act. These FRAGMENTS constitute impressions taken on a writing pad that might best be imagined as a stack of index cards shot in natural light on black-and-white 'Scope; their sum is entirely equal to—but at no point a copy of—the world."—Miles Champion

"Larry Fagin doesn't want to be famous. At times he's published his poems anonymously and at times insisted that his students & colleagues do likewise. The students insist that he is the best teacher ever or at least since X, Y or Z, all long dead (Z for centuries). The poems themselves are small, modest as Fagin is modest, yet built to last for generations. What if Cavafy were a member of the New York School? Or if Catullus had been a part of the Spicer Circle? They're powerful & opaque like the Barnett Newman sculpture in 2001 , tho the design preference is that each one should be no bigger than a breadbox. I think of them as the blood diamonds of the Lower East Side. That is so not Brooklyn, you say. Exactly."—Ron Silliman

Genres: Poetry

114 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2012

Reviews

[Jeffrey Wright · Rating 5 out of 5]

Larry Fagin is the quintessential New York School poet. Born in 1937, he serves as a bridge between first, second and third generation NYS. He combines the cosmopolitan breeziness of O’Hara’s Personism with the trademark humor of Ted Berrigan and Ron Padgett.

Fagin seduces the reader one bon mot at a time. His poems are like multiple plays occurring simultaneously. A conversational manner and punch-line timing serve as decoys, veiling the profundity. In “Bus Explosion,” “another bespoke poem, written while I wrote,” he asks, “What is your favorite cholera?”

A juggernaut of textures rolls through the lines, demanding constant reassessment. Pronouns trade places, characters bob to the surface and recede, and the “little Dutch girl” and Dingle Hoofer and His Dog dance beside Virgil and Ovid. And when Fagin pivots, he does so with traction. A “divine secret” is “more like a billing issue.” Sigh.

Ted Berrigan praised Fagin for having the “high stylist’s trademark” of being “happily, typical.” That is to say, as Fagin pursues the internal logic of the poem, his flights remain corporeal. His cartoonish but sophisticated persona is ever-present.

Never static, these poems pose open-ended enigmas. They form a seamless weaving of artistic puzzles – songs, malapropisms, twisted clichés, erudition and tautologies. Then, just in the right place, a blunt detail debases the distillation and brings it all back home. “Wells Fargo office held up.”

Fagin ratchets the vernacular to a fever pitch. “Gimme a pigfoot.” His svelte wisecracks and the silken wonderment of his running line have “left a leg on the tracks for allegorical futures.”