Accurate Key

This even features a poem printed on the inside of the box it came in.

Accurate Key gives you thirteen poems from thirteen authors, arranged in a very attractive box and printed on high-quality paper suitable for framing. And why not? Unlike the other poetry I reviewed this month, these are pretty good, proof that poems are best when they come from the heart, not from the issue de jour.

There are three standout poems that are real keepers. 1968: for leonard cohen is by the dynamic Transylvanian Andrei Codrescu, familiar voice on NPR and author of the magnificent novel The Blood Countess. With a subtle use of rhyme and near-rhyme and a winsome sensuality, it's the innocent and not so innocent description of what he felt as a teenager coming from the poverty of the Eastern Bloc and then suddenly exposed to the pleasures that America can offer. "the girls were dancing bare-breasted/ah, what better place to be/a young poet in the late century". Damn, I wish I got invited to those kinds of parties!

Torch Sketch by Steve Bellin is a simple poem about a child observing a shipyard fire, but the imagery is as solid as the Rock of Gibraltar. "Fire is a taste,/thick acetate wrapping the tongue". Yeah, I can taste that. Both sensual and dramatic, told from a child's eyes as remembered by an adult, it's startling not just for its appeal to the senses but for it's structured dramatic build and denouement – it would make a great scene in a movie.

The one that really caught my attention is Alice Notley's Poem. Her biography (the volume comes with bios of all the poets) is impressive – a combination hippie/cowgirl/East Coast liberal background has given her remarkable literary tools. Poem is something of a stream of consciousness mind-bender, something of a feminist rant, something of a cry of outrage against oppression, and compelling in the way a natural disaster is compelling – the poem takes you down a steep, slippery slope of subject changes so subtle that you don't even realize that you've lost control of where you're going until it's too late. I haven't seen a poem this good in years: this chick rocks!

These three are the best of the lot, but that doesn't mean that the rest of the poems should be dismissed; the whole volume is a minor treasure in black cardboard. Poetry has its own infectious appeal, and the Muse now does move me to summate my review as follows:

ACCURATE KEY is definitely worth a look-see.

(For those who wish to resist involuntary verse, use MUSE-GUARD®, another fine 3M® product)