Rethinking Jennifer Moxley-- "Imagination Verses"
I took flak from some poets I know for criticizing Jennifer Moxley's "Often Capital", especially as I hadn't seen her other books. Now I have, and am pleased to assert that one of them, "Imagination Verses", seems to me a bona fide modern classic. Moxley's voice here is free of prolix, abstracted excesses. She dusts off & uses the lyric "I" w/ impeccable taste, good humor, and stealth. A case in point would be "Neither Fish nor Foul", a sex-jealousy poem for the ages. Moxley writes:
I'll spill your ghastly evenings all over the Ivy League,
you know, those nights you've spent crying
by your claw-footed baignoire, praying your mother
can hear you from across town...
Fabulous. Moxley, unlike many of the post-avant elite, isn't afraid of assimilating "canonical" texts. Homages abound, to Keats, Wordsworth, the Greek Muses, even Bob Dylan (though that one's done a bit sideways). In short, the Moxley seen in "Imagination Verses" is a balanced poet. Artifice & truthfulness, distance & intimacy, detachment & engagement, lyricism & intellect, seriousness & humor; it's all here, existant without strain, without pose. Moxley is Marianne Moore for the Digital Age. What she'll do next is anyone's guess. She could do anything.
I'll spill your ghastly evenings all over the Ivy League,
you know, those nights you've spent crying
by your claw-footed baignoire, praying your mother
can hear you from across town...
Fabulous. Moxley, unlike many of the post-avant elite, isn't afraid of assimilating "canonical" texts. Homages abound, to Keats, Wordsworth, the Greek Muses, even Bob Dylan (though that one's done a bit sideways). In short, the Moxley seen in "Imagination Verses" is a balanced poet. Artifice & truthfulness, distance & intimacy, detachment & engagement, lyricism & intellect, seriousness & humor; it's all here, existant without strain, without pose. Moxley is Marianne Moore for the Digital Age. What she'll do next is anyone's guess. She could do anything.
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