University of New Mexico SUB--Sarah Manguso read from published and new work tonight at the Student Union Building. Her first book, The Captain Lands In Paradise, was published in 2002. She has two more books in the works. The first poem in her Captain book is "The Rider," which is posted somewhere below. It also started off the reading.
"The Rider" typifies the kind of tough questions this writer asks about life...in this case what is the nature of time, death, and beyond. It is a conundrum one cannot answer, the poet can only reframe it in such a way the reader recognizes the beauty of the question and the fierceness that the poet brings to the piece. This writer is not afraid of the big questions...which is as it should be. That is why poets are held in such high respect by some of us. Such bravery must be respected.
Her academic roots show through. There are lots of literary and historical references. But what is most engaging about her writing is the freshness of her vision, which combines a lot of mathematical terms with a sort of mystical search for answers. The end of "The Rider" has that sort of "what just happened here?" ending. But then, that is the nature of the subject: time, death..and beyond.
I bought the book.
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