Evidence of Things Seen

by Richard Wollman

Stuck on the Bible, stuck on Provence, stuck on New England, stuck on Comparative Literature, Wollman is a miner who does not mind dirtying his face and hands with truth. In this first book, Wollman's evidence, his discoveries, are worth the attention of any thinking reader.

65 pages, Paperback

First published June 10, 2006

Reviews

[Michael Joosten · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has been sitting on my to-read pile for the better part of six years now, purchased in a flush of Amazon addiction. I bought it because I was Richard Wollman's student and TA and it seemed that a book of poems by a professor who taught some of the poetry I was reading would be an interesting snoop.

But it sat on that to-read pile because poetry and I have a relationship like two cats: circling each other suspiciously. And, originally, there were too many books that HAD to be read (for which Professor Wollman may, of course, take as much credit as he deigns). Then came the cessation of school, the beginning of marriage, the immigration from academia... and... life.

I say all this because it was probably a better experience reading The Evidence of Things Seen at a remove sufficient to turn the author into a memory of legend rather than life. Wollman's voice was not the one reading this in my head--and I mean that as a good things, because it was the same "internal poetry" voice that brings across Donne and Jonson or any other of the innumerable poets. Though knowledge cannot be unknown, any personal knowledge of the author has faded into the same kind of impersonal knowledge as any that one happens to bring to a new text, howsoever it be gotten.

In short, it was worth the wait because it was worth the read.

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have a copy of this collection at school, a copy of Cemetery Affair at home. Very realistic ideas, with a bit of the ethereal.