The poems in SINCE are simple and devastating.
Their maker, James Stotts, is a father and a husband, a lonely man and a yearning man. His impossibly sober language goes beyond itself, cutting through doubt and surface complexity to touch upon and bring into sight the essential elements common to all people and all things. This is poetry of an old strain, whose elemental wisdom is at no point diluted by pretension or hesitation. It is strong, real speech, powerful in its art.
Yet there is no ferocity, no awkward anger imposing itself between poet and reader. These sonnets, lyrics and fragments admit direct access to a literary awareness of the world. It is a way of feeling that will be familiar to anyone who has walked the pavements after dark, in search of another drink or another source of comfort, and seen the pieces of life assemble themselves, for a fleeting moment, into a coherent whole. Whether this is delusion or a revelation of truth, perhaps doesn't matter. The poems make their own truth.
What more can be said of a debut collection that channels the dignities of Derek Walcott, the perceptual immediacy of Louise Glück, the apt phrasing of Anne Carson, the incongruous imagery of Anthony Hecht? Only that this first book sets a high standard indeed for the next to overtop.
- Title: SINCE
- Author: James Stotts
- Publisher: Pen & Anvil Press
- Year: 2016
- Boston, MA
- Paperback
- Condition: New
- Length: 104pp
- Dimensions: 8” x 8”
- ISBN: 9780991622214