Open Clothes by Benson, Steve (2005) Paperback

by Steve Benson

Six years after the publication of Roaring Spring, Steve Benson gives us his 8th book of poetry, Open Clothes from Atelos. Benson has long been associated with the Language Poets, particulary during his period of residence in the San Francisco Bay Area between 1976 and 1992. Since 1996, he has lived in Downeast Maine, which is reflected in the earthy questioning of these poems. Benson's Reverse Order (1989), Blue Book (1988), Blindspots (1981), and As Is (1978) can also be ordered through SPD.

Genres: Poetry

Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[Geoffrey Olsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Open modality and expression. To bare or to be making bare. What are the open clothes? Reading Open Clothes is to be embraced in the moment, reflection dilated through processing Steve Benson's recording. The production of these pieces is tied to time, though the processes generating the poems are open-ended and not constricting. A roving warmth and immediacy moves through these poems. The poems composed solely of interrogatives dissolve the authority of poet, as if the questions were composing an unseen poem, off at a distance from the text. Question poem as form of guidance and investigation, removed from the author(ity), as if the questions were transmitted to (and through) Benson. Benson's investigations use the materials at hand which generates beautifully personal poems. Is it because he depersonalizes the personal? That the textual "person" is enveloped in the questioning? Do we become investigators while reading these poems?

I also found this statement very liberating:

"So there's a quality of closure and of openness that occurs at every point, at least potentially. And so when you say that this was a this kind of move or a that kind of move, I'm never sure until it's all over what seems to be a dominant modality that would be registered for a certain move. It might appear to one person to be primarily a theme move or to another person to be a musical move or to another person to be a philosophical unhinging of the question, or whatever."

[J · Rating 2 out of 5]

For the second part of the book I like the process more than I like the result.