CONVERSATIONS OVERHEARD IN A RESTAURANT

Clanton’s collection of poetry spans decades of work and surveys a range of subject matter and emotion through pleasing images and flights of fancy.

The first poem, “Geometry of Clouds,” ends with the directive from its flight attendants “not to dare / to find patterns in what we cannot hold, and / not to fall in love with the transient air.” Clanton’s poems, and poetry in general, the work suggests, is meant precisely for that—to help its readers find those patterns, to invite them to fall in love with fleeting things. And therein lies poetry’s worth, as Clanton shows his reader again and again, in poems that express, through a compelling combination of transcendence and sensuality, underlying themes of both letting go and holding on. From bedrooms to kitchens to big skies and city streets, these poems find narrators highly observant of the world around them and constantly seeking ways to connect that world to an inner life, as in the last notes of “Orange Julius, 1972”: “taut memory / poured like pulpy orange sweetness in our eyes.” Clanton’s book is rife with such unexpected and delightful rhetorical moves emboldened by a clear command of lyric and line. The accumulation of these poems, however, becomes repetitive, likely for a number of reasons, including the limitations of a very similar first-person narrator as well as a parallel quality of setting and subject matter. Throughout these collected explorations, there is a heightened sense of optimism at the oddities life presents. Such a view is enlivening, but without components of levity to anchor it, it becomes a challenge to become fully invested in the world of these verses.

In his introduction, Clanton says, “Approachable poetry is what I write,” and most readers will agree, though the approachability sacrifices the depth found in a more carefully organized and varied collection.