Black Valentine
by David Abel
poetry
chapbook
36 pages
$10
ISBN 0-925904-57-0

handsewn binding

Reviews

from Standard Schaefer in A Tonalist Notes —

Hey folks, I went to hear David Abel read at Blue Danube the other night, saw Andrew there. I think David is maybe an A Tonalist, too. Particularly, he writes as if "Every step's on someone buried" and knowledge of this culminates in "strata of disappearance" and seems interested in what I think of as notions of place as it corresponds to the music of a poem, or a sort of "world feeling," history or memory as a place where sort of transhuman psychology takes place.

Sunset makes the windows
music lights the sequence
so there is a code

and a precipice--
the basin is inviting
as on a holiday

history seems poetic
grave
but sustaining--

a soapy taste on the tongue
independent of the music
or the prospect

Anyway, I didn't know David's work until then, but I'm becoming a fan of his BLACK VALENTINE. One thing that appeals to me is that it doesn't seem like a book written for a particular audience (not that such a thing is bad), but he doesn't seem to lament being trapped in particular language games or anything, but is more interested in moments when "objects have their/ edges again."