Exit Wounds

by Kevin Finn

From the Foreword by editor Cindy M. A friend of mine who has never been to Pittsburgh told me that what he conjures up in his mind at the thought of the Steel Valley is industry. Kevin Finn s poetry speaks to that industrial side of the city, and also to the rivers and railroad tracks, the dirt roads and the neon lights. He draws lines between them, tangles them and twists them into knots. These are the knots of shifting poles, / fishing hatcheries, / a river on fire. These knots are not limited to western Pennsylvania or the upper Ohio Valley. They are not limited to the three rivers running through Pittsburgh, or to the rust belt. Finn s poetry is a metaphor for loneliness, for the interaction between humanity and nature. In The Meridians, he describes the way we treat our slanted world through the lens of a barn sparrow, who will sometimes crush / the seed you put out for it. This is the kind of rich, rich language that fills the pages you are about to read. He plays with metaphor, with semantics and semiotics. He creates long streaming moments and connects them together sturdily, and at the same time he deconstructs what it is to be alive and lifeless, valuable and worthless, full of music and empty as a husk. What shines through is humanity and familiarity, as he reverts back and back again to water and earth, bone and forest, industry and our environment. And between the lines, there is music. However vivid the description, though, Mr. Finn seems to be looking through a window. Sometimes the glass is clear. Sometimes it is stained. At other times, the glass is the wavy glass of an old, single-paned window, and it seems as if it is at these times he sees the clearest.

26 pages, Paperback

Published September 5, 2009