Some of You Will Know by David Rivard
The wry, wise, funny, and reflective poems in David Rivard’s seventh book, Some of You Will Know, take a hard yet affectionate look at the games we play with ourselves. They are sure to mystify with all the things they know about the world: “To make room for air/ in his chest when he cries a crow/ has to hunch his wings/ and breathe deep”. Even more unsettling is how well they appear to know us: “You all,/ all of you/ say you don’t know/ what’s wrong/ with you, but/ of course you do,/ you have to.”
A delicate sense of being “within earshot” governs this book, allowing the poems to be both perishable and fundamentally timeless. Elemental claims emerge from moments that, however splendid, are merely human, as ordinary and repetitive and passing as the tides. The disarming tone of these claims does not keep their consequences from terrifying: “A fleeting bit of / memory is better forever than hope— / if you ask me.” They are, after all, the product not simply of a desire to write, but of a life lived, and actually seen and felt.
The wry, wise, funny, and reflective poems in David Rivard’s seventh book, Some of You Will Know, take a hard yet affectionate look at the games we play with ourselves. They are sure to mystify with all the things they know about the world: “To make room for air/ in his chest when he cries a crow/ has to hunch his wings/ and breathe deep”. Even more unsettling is how well they appear to know us: “You all,/ all of you/ say you don’t know/ what’s wrong/ with you, but/ of course you do,/ you have to.”
A delicate sense of being “within earshot” governs this book, allowing the poems to be both perishable and fundamentally timeless. Elemental claims emerge from moments that, however splendid, are merely human, as ordinary and repetitive and passing as the tides. The disarming tone of these claims does not keep their consequences from terrifying: “A fleeting bit of / memory is better forever than hope— / if you ask me.” They are, after all, the product not simply of a desire to write, but of a life lived, and actually seen and felt.
The wry, wise, funny, and reflective poems in David Rivard’s seventh book, Some of You Will Know, take a hard yet affectionate look at the games we play with ourselves. They are sure to mystify with all the things they know about the world: “To make room for air/ in his chest when he cries a crow/ has to hunch his wings/ and breathe deep”. Even more unsettling is how well they appear to know us: “You all,/ all of you/ say you don’t know/ what’s wrong/ with you, but/ of course you do,/ you have to.”
A delicate sense of being “within earshot” governs this book, allowing the poems to be both perishable and fundamentally timeless. Elemental claims emerge from moments that, however splendid, are merely human, as ordinary and repetitive and passing as the tides. The disarming tone of these claims does not keep their consequences from terrifying: “A fleeting bit of / memory is better forever than hope— / if you ask me.” They are, after all, the product not simply of a desire to write, but of a life lived, and actually seen and felt.
