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prophets of despair and defeat that write most of the modern poetry of today. Olsen's high humor lurks just below the surface and between the lines. You can't see it in the poems, but you can see it on the face of anyone you hand the book to and say, "here, read this one." He is a mind on a treasure hunt, a brain that serves as a butterfly net as he lives his life saving absolutely EVERYTHING GOOD for you and for me. I have bought two extra copies already for friends. They say what I say. You can read these for a fifth and sixth time and they will all appear to be new. None of these poems stays the same. They get better every time you read them. This is a book you will enjoy very very much.
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I have earned much respect and friendship with her through the delightful game of poetry.
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VISIONS OF A STORM CLOUD is a groundbreaking book of poetry for a variety of reasons. Virtually all of the poems move fast while smartly referring to a panoply of American landmarks, archetypes, and threats. Olsens' subject is the inquiring, educated self in a cultural chaos that keeps portending death. His voice is that of man caught in a jet stream of potential violence he can't control. Wired by a world amped on mortal fear, he chooses to join the quick current and to take succor from it. The electricity is nearly medicinal. The speed of Olsen's voice briefly inoculates him against the twin fears of meaninglessness and mortality.
In a way, Olsen's fascinating poems are a modernist answer to the post-modern developments of John Ashbery or the more radically post-modern Language Poets. Neither of these modes will do for Olsen because they lack the visceral kick that comes with an engaged life. He recognizes all the recent existential concerns about meaning and the inadequacy of language, but he can't stomach the disassociated sensibility. So he practices a poetry of celerity.
I think Olsen is at the forefront of a new kind of poetry that privileges speed, intellect, and emotion. This isn't a book for those looking for either sweetness or elegy. By referencing near the speed of thought, his poems can carry the reader on an astonishing, phantasmagorical ride. While a few other poets have started down a similar trail recently, they aren't likewise driven by the sound of their own informed doubt. Olsen has transformed his interior debate between skepticism and hope into a series of adrenalinic adventures in which the immediate prevails.
A superb book. I return to it often, and I learn from it.
-Kevin Clark
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