dukegregory 's review for:

Modern Poetry: Poems by Diane Seuss

5.0

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Diane Seuss makes me feel more equipped to both succumb to and rage against the numbness of life as experience piles and emotion simmers into something less than it once was. I took forever to read this because of ennui and severe anguish and haven't been able to keep myself focused on a page of text. Poetry has been the only thing really accessible to me. And starting this collection over and going through it over the past couple days has been such a joy. So much of the gesturing toward Romantic poetry through her play with the macabre and grotesque feels so true to contemporary life. So much toying with bygone modes without falling prey to pastiche or cheap mimicry. It's not better than frank: sonnets, but I really don't give a damn. It's an amazing thing to become conscious of the ecstacy of poems that click for you as they come together line by line, like being able to peer at all the micro details of a painting and then, finally, taking those steps back and witnessing the whole. Diane Seuss' vision encompasses the whole and beyond.