Jeff Dolven's poems take the guise of fables, parables, allegories,
jokes, riddles, and other familiar forms. So, there is an initial
comfort: I remember this, the reader thinks, from the stories of
childhood . . . . But wait, something is off. In each poem, an uncanny
conceit surprises the form, a highway paved with highwaymen, a school
for shame, a family of chairs. Dolven makes these strange wagers with
the grace and edgy precision of a metaphysical poet, and there are
moments when we might imagine ourselves to be somewhere in the company
of Donne or Spenser. Then we encounter "The Invention: A Libretto for
Speculative Music," which is, well--surreal, and features a decisively
modern, entirely notional score, sung by an inventor and his invention,
which (who?) turns out to be a 40s-type piano-perched chanteuse who
(which?) somehow knows all the words to the song you never knew you had
in you. The daring of this collection is not in replaying the fractured
polyphony of our moment. Speculative Music gives us accessible lyrics
that still manage to listen in on our echoing interiors. These are poems
that promise Frost's "momentary stay against confusion" and, at the same
time, provoke a deep, head-shaking wonder.
