Electric Arches
Eve L. Ewing
I really enjoyed this book. We hosted a poetry reading night at our apartment a few weeks ago, and Elise read a couple from Electric Arches. In particular I remember laughing out loud with delight at “The First Time (a retelling).” After that I decided I wanted to read the whole book. I’m not sure that cover-to-cover is the best way to read a poetry book, but we had to return it to the library. (Also, maybe this is a good poetry book for people who don’t read poetry books, like me? There is some art and some prose interspersed.)
Overall, as I guess is expected with poetry, I felt a much stronger engagement with some pieces than with others. I loved the quasi-sci-fi elements in some of the pieces, like “The Device.” Much of the work is very personal; Ewing writes with buoyancy, pride, and humor, but also with care (“Requiem For Fifth Period And The Things That Went On Then”). Many of the pieces gave me the strong feeling that they would be best read aloud, including my favorite one, “what i mean when i say i’m sharpening my oyster knife”:
http://www.poetrysociety.org/psa/poet...
I’d like to read some more of this at our next reading!