TREE RIVER FISH

A collection offers a cri de coeur from a poet who, after three years of the Donald Trump presidency, just can’t take it anymore.

As proof of his intellect, Trump recently rattled off a list of words: “Person, woman, man, camera, TV.” For the president, the list recalled a question on a cognitive test he had been talking about all summer—one that he “aced.” His answer to that question supposedly showed his sharp memory, but it also felt like a snippet of Trumpian poetry, as if e.e. cummings got strained through the brain of a Queens real estate mogul. Readers will likely think about Trump when reading the title of Williams’ new collection that references a Native American proverb but also sounds an awful lot like the president’s strange verse. The connection, it turns out, isn’t merely fortuitous, because the author’s poetry both reflects on and rages at Trump’s America. Sometimes, the link is quite direct, as in “The Poem To Trump All Others,” which captures the president’s perpetual braggadocio: “This poem will be so good / it’ll make your head spin. / You’ll be amazed at / how good this poem will be. / … / You won’t even remember other poems / because this poem will be the poem for the ages.” Elsewhere in the volume, Williams ruminates more broadly—not necessarily about Trump, but about life in the America the president is in the process of creating. So there is a piece on conservative consternation over the New York Times' 1619 Project, the paper’s reevaluation of American history in light of the pervasive influence of slavery. And there is “And Then Eminem Created Rap,” about hip-hop and cultural appropriation. One of the most effective of these wider-ranging pieces is “#metoo,” which opens: “You ask us / to unearth these hurts, / you say giving voice to the pain / will make us heal, dull the / jagged edges of / unholy theft / You misunderstand: / there is / no relief.” In the hands of a lesser writer, these ripped-from-the-headlines poems might feel convenient or undigested. Not so for Williams, who uses poetry both to channel her anger at the day’s political scene and to add urgency to her call to action.

Raw, bracing, thoroughly contemporary political verse.