Yale Series of Younger Poets: Discography (Paperback)

Publishers Weekly,This year's Yale Younger Poet is a young man with a record collection. In Sean Singer's Discography, aggressively up-to-date techniques (some of which suggest Mark Levine or Dean Young) evoke and analyze Afro-American music from early blues recordings ("My hair is black and glossy but I am not Bessie Smith") to John Coltrane. In Singer's two-part ode to a piano, "Eternity begins with springs, hammers & felt." Other sides of this thematically varied collection examine a character named, punningly, "Singer," or take up the poet's own sentiments (including guilt) about his Jewish identity: one highlight (singled out by judge W. S. Merwin) is a "Poem with Groucho Marx Refrains." (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved