Unfounded

by Michael Trocchia

Divided into three parts, Michael Trocchia’s debut collection of verse is a lyric study on the forms of fate, a haunting discourse on the linguistic fractures between one’s self and substance, and a set of shimmering images and meditations on the constant “guesswork” of understanding the world within us and beyond. The immediacy and sonic play of these poems are met by what is their gravity of thought and, in some, their philosophic irony. Attending to both the magic and logic of our language, Trocchia's poetry draws the two together, renewing the wonder of existence with greater clarity.

74 pages, Paperback

First published January 7, 2015

About the author

Michael Trocchia grew up on Long Island and currently resides in Staunton, Virginia. His poems and prose have appeared in journals such as Mid-American Review, Camera Obscura Journal, Asheville Poetry Review, Open Letters Monthly, Tar River Poetry, and Prick of the Spindle. He was a finalist for the 2013 Marsh Hawk Press Poetry Prize.

Reviews

[FutureCycle Press · Rating 5 out of 5]

We are the publisher, so all of our authors get five stars from us. Excerpts:


POEM WITHOUT ITSELF

You lift one side
of the poem. Each

word slides
off
the page.
Only punctuation
remains,
leaving this

ordered silence—

a sheet of nothing
riddled
with periods

of loss.


POEM UNDER A PAPERWEIGHT

The sky is brought down
like a great weight.

Look at him: he is a kid
folding the sky into stone.

Look at him: he is a kid
crushing a great bird

under the word for it.

The sky is brought down
like too many shreds

of paper, brought down
like too many things

to repeat.

Look at him: he is a kid
without speech.

Look at him at the end
of a trembling

beneath us.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

At first I was going to write reading this book was like meditating, but it is more like climbing down a ladder that has one side removed. With stark enjambment and extraordinary concision, these poems require concentration but also fill the reader with anticipation--what surprise does the next line bring? "A fine death/lines the river-/man's throat/song;" I wanted to give you/the odor of ruined/gods." Clearly the work of a writer who ceaselessly studies the craft of poetry and honors the material of language, the book is an education in parts of speech. Trocchia's training as a philosopher shines through, but in poem like "The Metaphysician Goes Home" ("I began life with a haircut,/new shoes.") his playfulness keeps the poem buoyant. In "Without Reference" the speaker takes away the names of things, a basket full of "Cypress/ and Fig, Muscle-/wood and Pine…Downstream a doe drank consonants." A beautiful book.

[Gabe]

* I got this book free from a goodreads giveaway in exchange for an honest review *

Though there are good parts in this book, I just didn't really feel connection.