Idiolexicon

Broken World -- Poems by Joseph Lease

(For the purposes of full disclosure, I have to admit this is a somewhat biased review, as Joseph Lease is a friend, and I myself had a hand in the pre-press copyediting. That being said--)

Broken World begins in a low tone, an easing of whispered language, reminiscent of James Schuyler or Robert Creeley (himself somewhat of a mentor to Lease.) That ease soon fades as we move into the title poem, a eulogy for Lease's friend James Assatly, who died of AIDS at a young age shortly after completing a novel which remains unpublished. By eulogizing his friend in verse, he also eulogizes a bygone America, a bygone hope, and a faltered national dream and identity.

In many ways, Broken World is about death, but it does not mourn, it is death as transformation, death as opportunity, death as rebirth and re-imagining (the refrain of Free Again builds this into a chorus, a raucous mercy meal for the departed.) The world and its norms are failing all around us, but once the soul leaves its body, the next body is waiting, there is new hope and new life, and a new will to fight for what is important. Nietsche thought we could form the world with our will, and so does Broken World. It is our prayer.

It is also identity -- Jewish identity, middle class identity, American identity, and the collective history and baggage that comes along with it. Lease moves through form and line, verse and prose, image and breath, approaching these weighty issues with ease and grace from so many angles -- this death becomes our history, our refrain. His politic is subtext, and the lack of a heavy handed overture is refreshing.

Labels: Recommended Reading