Eye Against Eye

by Forrest Gander

"Among the most gifted and accomplished poets of his generation" (Mark Rudman).

The three long poems in Eye Against Eye convey the wrought particulars of intimate human relations, perceptions of the landscape, and the historical moment, tense with political exigencies. Mayan ruins invoke the collapsing Twin Towers, love between parents and child blister with tension, and a bicycle thief shatters the narcotic illusion of a private accord. Also contained is "Late Summer Entry," a series of poetic commentaries on Sally Mann's landscape photographs. Eye Against Eye , Forrest Gander's third book with New Directions, cries out an ethical concern for the ways we see each other and the world, the potential to share a vision that acknowledges our commonality. As always with Gander's poetry, suspensions and repetitions drive toward a complex emotional experience, evoking the multifaceted, multi-vocal surge of our present.

Genres: Poetry

96 pages, Paperback

First published September 27, 2005

About the author

Born in the Mojave Desert, Forrest Gander grew up in Virginia and spent significant periods in San Francisco, Dolores Hidalgo (Mexico), and Eureka Springs, Arkansas before moving to Rhode Island. He holds degrees in literature and in geology, a subject that recurs in his writing and for which his work has been connected to ecological poetics.

Collaboration has been an important engagement for Gander who, over the years, has worked with artists such as Ann Hamilton, Sally Mann, Eiko & Koma, Lucas Foglia, Ashwini Bhat, Richard Hirsch & Michael Rogers. He also translates extensively and has edited several anthologies of contemporary poetry from Latin America, Spain, and Japan.

He writes across the genres. A recent project with the Chilean poet Raul Zurita is Pinholes in the Night Essential Poems from Latin America. Other titles by Gander include The Trace, a novel set on the border with Mexico; Fungus Skull Eye Wing Selected Poems of Alfonso D'Aquino, translations; and Redstart an Ecological Poetics, essays and poems written with John Kinsella. Gander's 2011 book of poems, Core Samples from the World, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Reviews

[Aaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first book by Gander that I've read and I'm impressed. I remember finding him in an anthology one summer and brought one of his poems into a writing workshop I was in. The teacher laughed when I mentioned his name and said "of course you would notice him in that big book." So, I've always felt a strange connection to him. Today I was reading the introduction to The Battlefield Where the Moon Says I Love You by Frank Stanford, and noticed Gander's name come up. I realized he was a southern poet, and I realized it was time I sat down with a book of his. He gave me what I wanted, which is the sights and smells of where I live and illuminations on what life here is like. He wanders into abstractions from time to time, but that's not really a bad thing, considering his voice creates enough room in the poems for some wandering to be natural. The Sally Mann poems were really a treat and make me want to try something similar with my own writing.His long, narrative poems in this collection drag on a bit long for my attention span, but they were still enjoyable. I'd recommend this.

[Crag Hill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Check out my review at Galatea Resurrects:

http://galatearesurrection3.blogspot....

[Carrie Etter]

I especially loved the long poem, "Mission Thief."

[Aliessa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I especially like the poems written in response to photographs (which are included).

[Kelsey Hennegen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some lines I admire:

"so they inhabit their bodies like music" and "As if they were waiting. As if inside experience, bright with meaning. / there were another experience pendant, unnameable" (20)

"the body has been my sole means for finding a world" (28)

"and even if it had pictured a real terrain for / one moment, of what place is it a memory now? / The image strands itself, a word knocked loose / from the language, a tooth under a pillow" (45)

"A dark cloud, wrote a monk, / illuminates the night. Oh, aperture revealing / the divine gesture as a pure demonstration of the world: / guide me back from interpretation to sensation" (49)

[Cory Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pretty good set of poems - reflecting on the interconnectedness of thoughts and feelings - Dating to the publication date of 2001, there is an interesting one about building a wall and all the critters that can crawl under or fly over the walls that keep people out. Also, reflecting on Aztec walls and friezes that were destroyed by Spaniards and re-tooled as part of the roadways between the Missions - and thus reflecting on travels in Mexico and elsewhere. There are four poems called Ligatures - a term I was not so familiar with, but interesting nonetheless. And in the middle, there are a series of pictures of different pastoral settings, each partnered with a reflective ekphrasis poem.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got one of my usual wild hairs and thought I needed to read something by Gander, who bobbed onto the radar a couple times. It was good, if different than I thought: this is both sparse and southern, a combo I don't always put together. Neither are totally in my wheelhouse, to be honest, so I don't know what to think.

This one comes with poems connected to pictures by Sally Mann which I think are hurt by being faced with poor reproductions of the same photos (which are landscapes, not what I think of Sally Mann for, really, either). So, these are solid poems, and a solid book, but not entirely to my taste. If you're Caroline, though, and wanted a distraction from _Deepstep Come Shining_, this might interest you.

[Wendy Trevino · Rating 3 out of 5]

Highlight: the Late Summer Entry section.