American Smooth
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An occasion to celebrate: a new collection by the Pulitzer Prize-winning former poet laureate; her first since *On the Bus with Rosa Parks*. With the grace of an Astaire, Rita Dove's magnificent poems pay homage to our kaleidoscopic cultural heritage; from the glorious shimmer of an operatic soprano to Bessie Smith's mournful wail; from paradise lost to angel food cake; from hotshots at the local shooting range to the Negro jazz band in World War I whose music conquered Europe before the Allied advance. Like the ballroom-dancing couple of the title poem, smiling and making the difficult seem effortless, Dove explores the shifting surfaces between perception and intimation.
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Dove has written some great poems and there are some good ones in here. I get the feeling while reading some books of poems that the author is just getting a book out there instead of letting these things sit awhile and then revising them. I don't think this is necessarily a fault of Dove, but of publishing in general.
Dove hits the mark with some lines and descriptions: “a dirty wingspan/of the daily news” and “tidy rupture.” “Twelve Chairs” and “Evening Primrose” are my favorite sequences in the book. As part of an installation by Larry Kirkland, the “Twelve Chairs” sequence was carved on the backs of twelve marble chairs in the lobby of the Federal Court House in Sacramento.
