evening man by frederick seidel

Spent quite a bit of time in April looking about the Farrar, Strauss & Giroux poetry blog, The Best Words in Their Best Order. Go look if you have the inclination and time to get lost for a bit or more than a bit. A stray comment I left somewhere won me this signed, limited run (500 copies) chapbook. Elegant darkness just like Seidel's words. Thrilled. And bracing myself for the brute force of his words from this new collection.

From the FGG poetry blog:

Calvin Bedient has called Seidel “the most frightening American poet ever.” Michael Robbins calls him “a ghoul,” while James Lasdun defined his work as "an oasis…in the desert of contemporary American poetry.”

All true but misleading in a way as well. To me there is sometimes a vulnerability and tenderness to the savage honesty, sometimes no triumph in the revelation of uneasy truths but a sadness. 

From title poem "Evening Man:"

The man in bed with me this morning is myself, is me,
The sort of same-sex marriage New York State allows.
Both men believe in infidelity.
Both wish they could annul their marriage vows.

And a little further on:

You have to practice looking like thin air
When you become the way you do not want to be,
An ancient head of ungrayed dark brown hair
That looks like dyed fur on a wrinkled monkey.

And ends:

Evening Man sits signing bills in the Oval Office headless - 
Every poem I write starts or ends like this.
His hands have been chopped off. He signs bills with the mess.
The country is in good hands. It ends like this.

Didn't see that coming, did you? I enjoy his poetry. Just wouldn't want to fall asleep around him.

Curious? Read some FSG blog posts about him here and download some readings of his poetry here. While the Evening Man chapbook is not available for sale, it's contents may be found in the first section of the new collection Poems 1959-2009 by Frederick Seidel.