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Visiting Hours at the Color Line: Poems
“I am incapable of succinctly praising this poet’s immense talent.” —TERRANCE HAYES Often the most recognized, even brutal, events in American history are segregated by a politicized, racially divided “Color Line.” But how do we privately experience the most troubling features of American civilization? Where is the Color Line in the mind, in the body, between bodies, between human beings? Selected for the National Poetry Series by Dan Beachy-Quick, Ed Pavlić’s Visiting Hours at the Color Line attempts to complicate this black and white, straight-line feature of our collective imagination, and to map its nonlinear, deeply colored timbres and hues. From daring prose poems to powerful free verse, Pavlić’s lines are musically infused, bearing tones of soul, R & B, and jazz. They link the influence of James Baldwin with a postmodern consciousness descended from Samuel Beckett, tracking the experiences of American characters through situations both mundane and momentous. The resulting poems are intense, ambitious, and psychological, making Visiting Hours at the Color Line a poetic tour de force.
- GenresPoetry
148 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2013
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
February 20, 2017
Review: I already read, "LET’S LET THAT ARE NOT YET: INFERNO". Can't say by any means that I'm an Ed Pavlic fan. He is master of bland prose. Anyone could pretend to write his work, and no one would care.
VERBATIM
By the time the second tower fell the Humanities lounge had filled up
with staff and professors and students. I stood there and stared into
the dust on TV. I was suddenly conscious that I’d spent years coaxing
what I saw and heard, charting it was I traveled oxbow routes thru me.
The dust disappeared the building. As I went thru the doorway, Bill
said, “It’s gone.” I left the lounge and walked cross campus, the upstate
sky unbroken blue. Kids on the library steps weeping in groups. I’d
had a recurring dream where the student and faculty of the college
paraded between classes holding their brains in glass jars, suspended in
clear fluid. My thought then, “I guess neither approach is much good.”
Jackson Garden is back behind the Campus Center. I walk thru the
stone gates feeling the towers and the dust and the broken glass of bodies
pulse in my arms and legs where I’d coaxed the world to go. I see Thanha
Nguyen, an exchange fellow in Modern Languages. When she met she’d
told me that she grew up in Hanoi during the American War.
VERBATIM
By the time the second tower fell the Humanities lounge had filled up
with staff and professors and students. I stood there and stared into
the dust on TV. I was suddenly conscious that I’d spent years coaxing
what I saw and heard, charting it was I traveled oxbow routes thru me.
The dust disappeared the building. As I went thru the doorway, Bill
said, “It’s gone.” I left the lounge and walked cross campus, the upstate
sky unbroken blue. Kids on the library steps weeping in groups. I’d
had a recurring dream where the student and faculty of the college
paraded between classes holding their brains in glass jars, suspended in
clear fluid. My thought then, “I guess neither approach is much good.”
Jackson Garden is back behind the Campus Center. I walk thru the
stone gates feeling the towers and the dust and the broken glass of bodies
pulse in my arms and legs where I’d coaxed the world to go. I see Thanha
Nguyen, an exchange fellow in Modern Languages. When she met she’d
told me that she grew up in Hanoi during the American War.
Displaying 1 of 1 review