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seapeanut's review against another edition
5.0
There is a Japanese word for a fifth “taste” in addition to salty, sweet, bitter, and sour. The closest English translation of umami is akin to “savory deliciousness.” What makes umami unique, besides being a fifth and distinct taste from the basic four, is that it seems to provoke a response of preference from the human brain. I mention this because it is the closest concept in any language that I can come up with to describe the feeling I get when reading poetry by Jim Daniels, like when I get to a poem in Revolt of the Crash-Test Dummies innocently titled “Sledding in America” and am left with the notion that “You need a way to steer,/or all the room in the world.” Umami.
Revolt of the Crash-Test Dummies grabs the reader by the windpipe and doesn’t let go. In a good way. This is especially arresting when the poems deal with family relationships, as in “Waiting Room, Children’s Hospital, Pittsburgh,” when the son asks what an esophagus is and the following reflection and response: “They’ll stick/ a tiny camera on a tube up his nose,/ down his throat. Ask the doctor.”
Much of Daniels latest collection of poetry is depressing—there is no way to sugarcoat it. Just as Daniels doesn’t sugarcoat reality for the reader. However, the depression invoked by this collection is not one that lies down and gives up. It is one that, by its very acknowledgement of truth, stands up, confronts, incites. Daniels is also able to inject a note of his brand of ironic humor throughout, as with his play with language and poetry itself in “Poetry.” At times in your face, other times heart-breaking in its subtlety, Revolt of the Crash-Test Dummies shows Daniels’ poetic genius when the reader is along for the whole ride, with the poet past the point of crashing.
Daniels consistently leaves the reader with an image, an action, a scene that contains all the feeling that would be sappy to say. The three lines before the last of “¿” then, “…So, that day on the bridge,/ you should have suspected//the way she stood still, braced herself,” carries more weight than a telling that I could discount. I cannot discount anything that is left with me after reading Revolt of the Crash Test Dummies. The poem “Hung Out to Dry” asks “While we take our snapshots,/ who will notice the lone swimmer/ stroking perfectly over the falls?” Daniels sees what those who are merely voyeuristic miss. This is a necessary book, and Jim Daniels remains my preference for the chronicler of our lives.
Revolt of the Crash-Test Dummies grabs the reader by the windpipe and doesn’t let go. In a good way. This is especially arresting when the poems deal with family relationships, as in “Waiting Room, Children’s Hospital, Pittsburgh,” when the son asks what an esophagus is and the following reflection and response: “They’ll stick/ a tiny camera on a tube up his nose,/ down his throat. Ask the doctor.”
Much of Daniels latest collection of poetry is depressing—there is no way to sugarcoat it. Just as Daniels doesn’t sugarcoat reality for the reader. However, the depression invoked by this collection is not one that lies down and gives up. It is one that, by its very acknowledgement of truth, stands up, confronts, incites. Daniels is also able to inject a note of his brand of ironic humor throughout, as with his play with language and poetry itself in “Poetry.” At times in your face, other times heart-breaking in its subtlety, Revolt of the Crash-Test Dummies shows Daniels’ poetic genius when the reader is along for the whole ride, with the poet past the point of crashing.
Daniels consistently leaves the reader with an image, an action, a scene that contains all the feeling that would be sappy to say. The three lines before the last of “¿” then, “…So, that day on the bridge,/ you should have suspected//the way she stood still, braced herself,” carries more weight than a telling that I could discount. I cannot discount anything that is left with me after reading Revolt of the Crash Test Dummies. The poem “Hung Out to Dry” asks “While we take our snapshots,/ who will notice the lone swimmer/ stroking perfectly over the falls?” Daniels sees what those who are merely voyeuristic miss. This is a necessary book, and Jim Daniels remains my preference for the chronicler of our lives.
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