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serenaac's review
3.0
Buoyancy and Other Myths by Richard Peabody is a slim collection that gets at the heart of family drama broken into three parts: Shooting Myself in the Foot, Kissing Games, and Between Funerals. The narrator in these poems ages and matures from a young boy eager to help his father but afraid of falling short to an older man similarly worried about falling short, but more accepting of reality.
Unlike the young man in “Family Secrets” who is shaking sense into his brother, the man in the latter poems, like “Orbits,” comes to the realization that the past cannot be hidden and regrets do nothing but hold you back. You must roll with the punches. What is striking in some of these poems is the calmness of the narrator, even as violent thoughts or actions are being displayed. For instance, in “Family Secrets” (page 11) — which is a powerful way to start a collection — “Music isn’t enough tonight./Scratching, clawing, eyes like stones./If I erase him I will expand./His sins wiped clean. Nowhere/for him to leer from. No perch/or receptacle that can hold that/particular weight. He gives up./” Is his brother still living and he wishes that he didn’t have to remember him or is it what happened to his brother that he does not wish to remember and it would be easier to erase him entirely?
Read the full review: http://savvyverseandwit.com/2011/09/buoyancy-and-other-myths-by-richard-peabody.html
Unlike the young man in “Family Secrets” who is shaking sense into his brother, the man in the latter poems, like “Orbits,” comes to the realization that the past cannot be hidden and regrets do nothing but hold you back. You must roll with the punches. What is striking in some of these poems is the calmness of the narrator, even as violent thoughts or actions are being displayed. For instance, in “Family Secrets” (page 11) — which is a powerful way to start a collection — “Music isn’t enough tonight./Scratching, clawing, eyes like stones./If I erase him I will expand./His sins wiped clean. Nowhere/for him to leer from. No perch/or receptacle that can hold that/particular weight. He gives up./” Is his brother still living and he wishes that he didn’t have to remember him or is it what happened to his brother that he does not wish to remember and it would be easier to erase him entirely?
Read the full review: http://savvyverseandwit.com/2011/09/buoyancy-and-other-myths-by-richard-peabody.html
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