The world is terrifying and exhilarating. Believing firmly in the
romantic notion that "embellishment is love," Allan Peterson in Fragile
Acts combines the intellectual force of T.S. Eliot and Wallace Stevens,
the ethereal wonder of Robert Hass, and the tight lyric beauty of
Elizabeth Bishop and Donald Hall. These steely, wide-ranging poems are
at once personal and philosophical, incisive and meditative--funny,
serious, compassionate and searching.
Juxtaposing the fast pace of contemporary society with the quiet
localism and naturalism of the great American transcendentalists,
Peterson's sinewy, muscular collection reveals a profoundly intelligent,
curious mind leaping from object to thought to emotion. And yet, poem
after poem, Peterson somehow binds seemingly unrelated elements into one
stunning whole. You'll nod your head in reflection one moment and laugh
out loud the next. These moving poems are a profound delight to read.
Peterson writes with wondering beauty: "As a child I knew I was sleeping
when I began / falling though still furled in my sheets / and I would
look over other people's shoulders / to see what they were reading / the
headlines the footnotes / Extra! Extra! / a boy has left his room
through a map on the wall."
And again later, with a sly smile: "When she twirled and slapped / a
mosquito and missed, a red sun stayed on her leg throughout / most of
the chapter on Self Reliance."
