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Cutty, One Rock: Low Characters and Strange Places, Gently Explained by August Kleinzahler, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004, $19.00 cloth, ISBN 0374133778.
It can be a curious business when distinguished poets turn to prose. August Kleinzahler, who is a wonderful evoker of the here-and-now, of what Hopkins called haecceitas, has produced a tripartite book of essays, frequently playful, even flip, but with much of the plangency springing from a life enjoyed somewhere inside the text. It sits intriguingly beside his concurrent, prize-winning volume of poetry, The Strange Hours Travelers Keep.
Cutty, One Rock is crafty but transparent enough. It is variously lively, even slangy, with quick-moving prose which can sound like Jarrell for a moment, or even like S. J. Perelman in its catalogue bravuras. Kleinzahler has a strong story to tell in the first three chapters and the final movement of the book, the tale of a bright New Jersey kid who managed to live close to the Mob but turned out to be a poet as well. His mother goes off to "her Shakespeare club, which met on alternate Tuesdays," and his gay brother (this is very gradually revealed) becomes a gambler, boozer, and a crook. The account...