Minimum Heroic

by Christopher Salerno

Winner of the 2010 Mississippi Review Poetry Series.

Genres: Poetry

64 pages, Perfect Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

BIO:
Christopher Salerno is the author of five books of poetry. His new book, “The Man Grave,” won the Lexi Rudnitsky Award from Persea Books and is available now. Previous books include “Sun & Urn” (UGA Poetry Prize), “ATM” (Georgetown Poetry Prize), “Minimum Heroic” (Mississippi Review Poetry Prize), and “Whirligig.” From 2016-2021, he served as the editor of Saturnalia Books. His trade book, “How to Write Poetry: A Guided Journal,” was published by Calisto Media in 2020. His poetry has received the Glenna Luschei Award from Prairie Schooner, The Founders Prize from RHINO Magazine, the Two Sylvias Press Chapbook Award, the Laurel Review Chapbook Prize, and a New Jersey State Council on the Arts fellowship. His poems have appeared in New York Times Magazine, New Republic, American Poetry Review, New England Review, Jubilat, and elsewhere. He teaches Creative Writing at William Paterson University in New Jersey where he serves as Director of Writing Across the Curriculum. Visit him at www.csalernopoet.com

Reviews

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the landscapes in these poems, the attentiveness to details I know I'd overlook, the matter-of-fact acknowledgment of human detritus littering every space. For instance: on the beach, "white shells, a wet magazine, the edge of an oar-blade"; a neighborhood appears as "a diorama dropped haphazardly on the sidewalk," as a place where "instead of wings, we dream cape."

I also appreciate the surprising turns of language, especially unexpected verbs: "Another wave and / another wave pranks the beach"; "The wilderness is banging."

Finally, reading this as fall begins to creep in, I remember the truth in the list in "Forensics" of the "ways / winter wants me dead":

1. Knife in a knife storm.
2. Splayed by a barn door.
3. Razor-faced crow.
4. Smoker at the pump.
5. Trouble at the well.
6. Bruised by a billboard.
7. Lose to a bear.
8. Botched metamorphosis.
9. War all over again.
10. I screw off my head.
11. Stone pulling the skull.
12. Can't concentrate.

[Joe]

Favorite lines:

where stage blood or sunlight
fills the hundreds of clear jellyfish splayed along the beach
(from "In the Golden Age of Counterfeiting)

&

Each night on the terrace where crows pick locks,
I paint my little crow gold, and it sings my new favorite
part and we go for a spin in a a good gear
(from "Whirl")

&

The dog takes the leash in his mouth. A bottle rocket lay in the snow. A canary lay in the snow. I dreamt my father, uncle, brother were throwing pies at a bear. But there's no pie in the ivy. No snowball in the sentence. No teeth coming down.
(from "IV. Exit [If the Blind Need Nudging:]")

The one about the jellyfish is particularly right. I walk by jellyfish every morning on the Potomac. They're all smudged up on the beach with that weird reddish brain. It looks like they were just tossed there like junk. Anyway. I will read more of this when I can.

[Heather Gibbons · Rating 4 out of 5]

A recent favorite-- so many startling associative leaps, gorgeous/terrifying/confounding images and metaphors, wonderful use of the line, enjambment, moments of hard-earned profundity jammed-up against wit and sadness and absurdity. I lost some momentum in the third section, I think perhaps because I craved more tonal range, some bigger shifts, but overall, a great second collection; I look forward to seeing what Salerno does next.

[Allison · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first section I loved, but I lost momentum in reading sections 2 and 3. For me, and I don't mean me as a general reader, but me as a specific reader, I had a connection with the first poems that I lost in the later sections, although I still see that these are finely constructed poems.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of "ah" moments as one finds terse, stabbing bits of straight-forward lines among the raw piles of potent rubble.