Displaying 1 of 1 1986 Format: Book Author: Komunyakaa, Yusef. Title: I apologize for the eyes in my head / Yusef Komunyakaa. Edition: First edition. Publisher, Date: Middletown, Connecticut : Wesleyan University Press, [1986] Scranton, Pennsylvania : Distributed by Harper & Row ©1986 Description: viii, 73 pages ; 23 cm. Series: Wesleyan poetry Wesleyan poetry. Subjects: American poetry -- 20th century. Notes: 448026 ; *448027 LCCN: 85010504 ISBN: 0819551449 (alk. paper) 0819561487 (pbk. : alk. paper) Other Number: 12050319 System Availability: 2 # System items in: 2 # Local items: 2 # Local items in: 2 Current Holds: 0 Place Request Add to My List Expand All | Collapse All Availability Trade Reviews Library Journal ReviewKomunyakaa's poems create and populate a world in which the linchpins of common sense and everyday appearances come loose, ``where simple/ answers fall like ashes/ through an iron grate.'' Photographers airbrush the truth, Cinderella wakes up in a California pleasure dome. Even individual poems take on phantasmagoric dimensions akin to Bosch's busy but fascinating paintings as the poet reels off catalogs of apocalyptic events: ``A white goat/ is staring into windows again./ Bats clog the chimney like rags./ An angel in the attic/ mends a torn wing.'' The invention is considerable, and though the accretion of wild images and preposterous characters eventually wears thin, this volume showcases a talented surrealist whose future work will warrant close attention. Fred Muratori, Cornell Univ. Lib. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.CHOICE ReviewExtends and deepens the terrain Yusef Komunyakaa explored so effectively in his first collection of poems, Copacetic (CH, Nov '84). Komunyakaa is a poet of the night and of the streets, and in this collection his narrator roams through the dark alleys and side streets of the American landscape-a world populated by hustlers, prostitutes, angels, and ghosts-witnessing and participating in the world he records. Ordinary experience is often transformed into allegory and everyday people appear as mythic figures: The Thorn Merchant, Mr. Magnifico, The Thorn Merchant's Wife. And the ``I'' that records these poems is also the eye that perceives them, seeking in the process to restore the vital connection between the heart and the brain, the mind and the senses. Komunyakaa's poems are works of impressive verbal dexterity and striking images and rhythms, and this collection should consolidate his place as one of the important poets of his generation. Highly recommended for collections of contemporary American poetry-undergraduate, graduate, and public library.-J.A. Miller, Trinity College, Conn. Librarian's View Syndetics Unbound Displaying 1 of 1
