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Goodbye to the Orchard by Steven Cramer, Sarabande Books, 2004, $13.95 paper, ISBN 1932511059.
Steven Cramer's fourth book of poems, Goodbye to the Orchard, provides page after page of graceful inquisition and controlled musicality. Indeed, much like his previous verse, these poems arrive at simple (and skeptical) revelation without overwhelming the reader with abstraction or undercooked sentiment. Cramer's verse reads like the words of a reliable and poetic uncle. For him, the poetic-while being a means to revelationusually revolves around the quirky commonalities of life. Cramer is a witty oracle of the ordinary.
For instance, in the poem "Body on the Brain," casually considering the perennial mind/body problem, Cramer writes:
We get
our lessons in otherness where we can.
How else could I stare into the porridge
of my daughter's diarrhea, swallowing
hard to keep from adding to it, yet grateful
she's still mine enough to let me check?
Through the comic crudeness of these lines he reveals a real and tender moment. As Cramer reminds us, "Life's...