“Dreamed Enough To Be True”
Matt Hart takes my love to town @ Coldfront Mag today ~
“… they’re compositions of bright ideas, music, and noise, resulting in (among other things) the deployment of form and content against one another to create tension, poetic texture, and (paraphrasing Apollinaire) the flare-up of multiple meanings in the flames of joy.
… Of course, part of why these poems work is because they don’t tell stories, and they aren’t loose either (esp. formally, musically). However, they are perhaps indebted to that other sense of “storytelling,” a.k.a. the fine art of fabrication/imagination. Or, as Oscar Wilde so delicately put it, “the fine art of lying.” And this leaves the reader and “you” and “I” ever on an ambiguous note—one that serves to echo, highlight, and remind us of the limits of understanding and sense-making.
… At risk of sounding too “Rah! Rah! go Ms. King” about things (though I see nothing wrong with that really), I should mention that this is a book that must/needs be read SLOWLY over time and ACROBATICALLY. One must be willing to read around, back and forth, and sideways in/between the poems—not merely left to right, top to bottom down the page. The music and connective tissues of the book work best when they’re allowed to speak to one another.
… I realize that some people may object that I’ve failed in this review to note the book’s obvious Wilco references. Yes, the book’s title is the same as the title of a Wilco song from their album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. And it’s also true that the book’s first poem “A Ghost Is Born” is the same as the title of Wilco’s 2004 album of the same name. My sense, however, is that King’s book is of the sort that’s full of cultural references and markers, which will be of interest (or not) to readers depending on what they bring to their reading.
… On the whole, I’m the Man Who Loves You works beautifully, and it’s a book worth spending some time working through. For all its flashy machinations, the book remains surprisingly human and knowingly lovely in love.
… [con’t at Coldfront Mag]
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p.s. The first person to name the title’s reference wins. Don’t Google – God sees you!
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p.p.s. Anyone who guesses where I stole that image from extra-wins!
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11 Responses to ““Dreamed Enough To Be True””
AMY KING View All →
Amy King is the recipient of the 2015 Winner of the Women’s National Book Association (WNBA) Award. Her latest collection, The Missing Museum, is a winner of the 2015 Tarpaulin Sky Book Prize. She co-edited with Heidi Lynn Staples the anthology Big Energy Poets of the Anthropocene: When Ecopoets Think Climate Change. She also co-edits the anthology series, Bettering American Poetry, and is a professor of creative writing at SUNY Nassau Community College.
AMY KING 
June 13th, 2007 at 7:45 pm eI have a memo for you, from God. Says she doesn’t like Wilco.
June 14th, 2007 at 12:15 am eAmy, when I saw the picture, I immediatly thought of the cover art for Transatlanticism, but they are indeed different. I have to admit to liking this review much better than a previous review you posted (damn if I’m not lazy to reference exactly).
June 14th, 2007 at 5:25 am eAna, Not sure I trust her taste: have you seen her groupies?
Rachel, It is cover art, but not for Transatlanticism. Glad you liked the review – I think it’s keen too~
June 14th, 2007 at 6:23 am eBy the way, Ana, you win. No one extra-wins – yet. Ana, what you win will be soon.
June 14th, 2007 at 3:03 pm eI hope it’s alcoholic.
June 14th, 2007 at 7:01 pm eEven Isopropyl?
June 14th, 2007 at 7:08 pm eThat picture is going to come to me in my dreams tonight- I KNOW that picture but I just can’t put my finger on it.
June 14th, 2007 at 9:09 pm eHow about a hint, Rachel — the album is recent (2006) and the band does a kind of fusion music. They’re not an Eastern or Northern band. They have a small, but growing, loyal following, and I’m on a listserv for them (tho I rarely read the digest anymore and that won’t help you). Lots of guitar. Often melodic (maybe more symbiotic?) but not electronica. One name, starts with a “C”. Won’t hear them on pop stations, infrequently on WFUV. Does any of that help?
June 18th, 2007 at 7:18 am eThat’s from Garden Ruin…by Calexico.
I just ordered your new book off Amazon and I can’t wait.
I need a kamera, to my eye.
June 18th, 2007 at 3:54 pm eBen, you extra win! If you send me your snail mail address, I’ll send your winnings: email me at amyhappens at gmail.com
Rachel, send me your address, and you’ll receive a thanks for playing gift!
June 27th, 2007 at 1:16 pm eBelatedly . . . one of the nicest things about Hart’s review is that it becomes King-flavored as it goes on, as if he became the hot water (or the tea leaves) in an Amy-brew, osmotically swapping Hart-molecules of perception for Kingish ones. It’s not easy to do, as the previous lines demonstrate all too clearly. But in Hart’s case there’s a delightful blurring of the line between the text on the page and the reviewing reader, infused, enchanted, elevated.