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A review by seebrandyread
The Last Usable Hour by Deborah Landau
4.0
Today I read The Last Usable Hour by Deborah Landau. I love the way poetry stretches the limits and possibilities of language. It's not tethered by character, plot, and narrative the way prose is and can therefore focus on the individual word, punctuation mark, and physical space on the page. Landau's poetry considers all of these aspects.
The book is divided into 4 sections, each consistenting of a series of title-less poems. Many are addressed to an unnamed "you," and one section includes the phrase "dear someone" in nearly every poem. There's very little to anchor the poems except for this mysterious addressee, who may or may not be the same person throughout, and that the majority seem to take place in the city during the winter. As a result, the collection has a lonely feel.
The pages of the book are large, but the poems rarely take up a majority of the space. Few poems are more than a page long, some lines only a few words long. Since no individual poem has a title, a small asterisks marks the beginning of a new poem at the top of the page. Even though night imagery isn't especially common, the poems have the essence of taking place at night or maybe written in the night, the asterisks single stars, the poems the moon illuminating the open page.
I really found myself relying on senses and inference with these poems. I'm sure I could glean more concrete information if I analyzed each one, but I don't think this is the intent. I think the collection is about a relationship and a specific time in the poet's life, that, on the surface, seems pretty typical, but has been expressed with images, atmosphere, and impressions.
The book is divided into 4 sections, each consistenting of a series of title-less poems. Many are addressed to an unnamed "you," and one section includes the phrase "dear someone" in nearly every poem. There's very little to anchor the poems except for this mysterious addressee, who may or may not be the same person throughout, and that the majority seem to take place in the city during the winter. As a result, the collection has a lonely feel.
The pages of the book are large, but the poems rarely take up a majority of the space. Few poems are more than a page long, some lines only a few words long. Since no individual poem has a title, a small asterisks marks the beginning of a new poem at the top of the page. Even though night imagery isn't especially common, the poems have the essence of taking place at night or maybe written in the night, the asterisks single stars, the poems the moon illuminating the open page.
I really found myself relying on senses and inference with these poems. I'm sure I could glean more concrete information if I analyzed each one, but I don't think this is the intent. I think the collection is about a relationship and a specific time in the poet's life, that, on the surface, seems pretty typical, but has been expressed with images, atmosphere, and impressions.