supercheesegirl

Stuart was my thesis advisor in Greensboro, and this is his latest book. I've been meaning to read it for a while but I guess I was held back because I didn't totally love his other books. Stuart adopts this sort of Grand Male Poet persona in his poems that I kind of don't really connect with. However, I loved this book. I thought it was really heart-wrenching and lovely. Stuart recently went through a rough divorce, which strongly informs a lot of the poems--there's a lot of heartbrokenness and despair, and it's hard to keep up a Grand Male Poet persona when the poet is so lonely and heartbroken. It wouldn't be Stuart if it wasn't still a little pompous, of course, but it all blends really well in this book. There were some really amazing lines that struck me really hard. For example, "You are paddling the canoe / And I am taking your picture because when / I cannot touch you I take your picture." Two poems I really loved were "She Put On Her Lipstick in the Dark" and "The Interrupted Sleep of Skeletons". But there was a lot to love in this book. By far my favorite of Stuart's books.