Mark Statman

Exile Home Mark Statman

Poetry. It's very rare to watch the birth of a new style. It's like watching through a new set of Proust's kaleidescopes. Mark Statman has been working for years on a vision of himself and parts of the city--concentrated and bare as any poetry. It's hard to compare it to anything else.--David Shapiro Sieve-like and shifty language with more directness and clarity than obfuscation and obtuseness. The father poem of EXILE HOME, 'Green Side Up, ' is a triumph of courage and poetry and love. From it the manuscript opens like a flower of multiple petals. I am enthralled by a seeming innocence and a creeping wisdom, which, rather than distort the innocence, strengthens it. After all, we have the choice to see the world as unconcerned about our troubles in it. It is the world, not a bark on which we float toward happiness. An assertion of the will to see hope as language-driven, music-clad. Mr. Yeats and his wind-up birds. There are many drowsy emperors out there.--Pablo Medina