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The Minneapolis Poet: Bruce Ario, Selected Poems
347 pages, Paperback
Published November 11, 2024
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July 19, 2026
Being one to enjoy writers of a more ornate bent, who can create wide colours and sounds with words, I am, at least in personal taste, less drawn to plainness. There is a pleasure in having the full spectrum of expression before one’s eyes, albeit a superficial one, akin to the indulgence of exorbitant fashions. Still, every now and then, a voice comes along that shakes such excesses out of me. Returns me to a yearning for the absolute simplicity of the simplest words. And, as of late, it is a selection of poems from Bruce Ario (1955 – 2022) that has shaken.
True, Bruce Ario is not, to me, a new voice. He’s had poems published on the net and has written novels. From glimpses alone, one can estimate the substance of a writer’s craft, yet the magnitude of it escapes until one perceives the whole. And what a majestic whole this is! Several hundred poems – a voice condensed. That voice: plainspoken, democratic, the most accessible poet to exist thus far without attendant compromises on quality. Think of all the failed attempts at such in recent years: whatever Rupi Kaur or other ‘Insta-poets’ have loosened upon the masses. Most of Bruce’s poetry could fit an Instagram post, share Instapoetry’s superficial appeal – save a difference: a depth worth the dig.
“Why didn’t I think of that?!” is the sentiment that sums up the Bruce Ario reading experience. Underneath a sheathe of simple words, the poems are upheld by the sheer intellect of their arrangement. Unlike other greats, say W.B. Yeats, Hart Crane, or Wallace Stevens, whose phonetic & lyric capabilities can dazzle, or forbid, even as they obscure the narrative poesy that drives the music of their poems, Bruce has many poems that function almost entirely on narrative. Not that he’s unmusical, as his plainspokenness contains subtle phonetic effects, but these take backseat to his peculiar play of thought. Thus, one exclaims: “Why didn’t I think of that?!” – these poems seem within reach; their narrative can be broken down, analysed, understood. Yet only a mind like Bruce could have formed them.
Read more here: https://www.automachination.com/plain...
True, Bruce Ario is not, to me, a new voice. He’s had poems published on the net and has written novels. From glimpses alone, one can estimate the substance of a writer’s craft, yet the magnitude of it escapes until one perceives the whole. And what a majestic whole this is! Several hundred poems – a voice condensed. That voice: plainspoken, democratic, the most accessible poet to exist thus far without attendant compromises on quality. Think of all the failed attempts at such in recent years: whatever Rupi Kaur or other ‘Insta-poets’ have loosened upon the masses. Most of Bruce’s poetry could fit an Instagram post, share Instapoetry’s superficial appeal – save a difference: a depth worth the dig.
“Why didn’t I think of that?!” is the sentiment that sums up the Bruce Ario reading experience. Underneath a sheathe of simple words, the poems are upheld by the sheer intellect of their arrangement. Unlike other greats, say W.B. Yeats, Hart Crane, or Wallace Stevens, whose phonetic & lyric capabilities can dazzle, or forbid, even as they obscure the narrative poesy that drives the music of their poems, Bruce has many poems that function almost entirely on narrative. Not that he’s unmusical, as his plainspokenness contains subtle phonetic effects, but these take backseat to his peculiar play of thought. Thus, one exclaims: “Why didn’t I think of that?!” – these poems seem within reach; their narrative can be broken down, analysed, understood. Yet only a mind like Bruce could have formed them.
Read more here: https://www.automachination.com/plain...
Displaying 1 of 1 review