My Poems Won't Change the World: Selected Poems

Patrizia Cavalli. My Poems Won't Change the World: Selected Poems. Gini Alhadeff, ed. New York. Farrar, Straus & Giroux. 2013. isbn 9780374217440

My Poems Won't Change the World opens with poetry almost haiku-like in its concision and simplicity, prov- ing Patrizia Cavalli a master of mini- malism. And yet the very white space on her pages can function ironically: in the eponymous poem, a bemused and knowing silence follows the poet's affirmation: "yes of course / my poems / won't change the world." The arch "of course" casts a shadow over the silence that follows, casting doubt on this overly deprecatory-or ironically self-aggrandizing-state- ment. Her readers are left...