Seeing in a Small Town

Trozzolo’s poetry collection finds fascination in the mundane.

The poems in this collection take in the outlines of daily life in small towns and imbue simple imagery with color and detail. The first piece, “Fly Over,” introduces the spirit of the poems that follow: “You know that game where you see a person, couple, or group and begin to make a story around them? It’s a great way to meet spies, murderers, vagabonds, lovers, and thieves.” From there, each page begins with a short introduction to the characters and locales that inspired the poem that follows. In “Quiet at the Library,” the speaker observes a red-haired librarian at work: “Amid this low racket, she reads—slow—absorbing the / shape of each word—careful turning pages as if separating the / ink to claim her story…” In “Overheard at Billy Goat Tavern,” depicting an adulterous couple before a reconciliation, the introductory prose explains: “It’s dark enough, and both old and young fit in. It’s almost closing time, and the couple across from me is conversing emotionally. I don’t want to eavesdrop…” At a motel parking lot, readers encounter another troubled couple: “Softly she blows smoke his way then kisses him / hard. He wants to complain, but she warned him, / said she would love him like a nomad—” (“Leaving the Travelodge”). Not all the poems feature scandalous subject matter (though many do); in the short-lined, end-rhyming tercets of “Missing at Creekmore Cemetery,” the speaker has come looking for the “James Gang” and found instead “a man praying.” Instead of eavesdropping, romanticizing, or storytelling, this poem empathizes with its subject’s lonely search for signs in the depths of mourning: “Is that her / Breath / On my face. // Is that her / Glance / And her lace.” This short collection of poetry is unpretentious and full of imagery and allusion. The subjects are not always people; a hawk by the river, a squirrel on the street, and a mannequin in a department store are all fodder for the author. The form and style of the work are as quaint as the small-town bars, diners, parks, and Main Streets the collection inhabits. It’s tempting to board a Greyhound bus to nowhere in particular after luxuriating in these verses.

A collection of poems attuned to the deeper currents of small-town America.