These are poems of address and comment in the tradition of Jonathan Williams, Anselm Hollo, Robert Creeley and Edward Dorn. Irony is marked form the start as operative exchange value: "'Irony' i read/ but is said 'Money'."
What I especially value in Bromige's work is his ability to transform the materials of everyday life into stunning reverse-image admonitions, as in--
The referents' lair
for george Bowering
Carter was talking to the shah
about a country which had blossomed forth
under enlightened leadership
About then i found what i was looking for
The weather and the sports report
Attention to the details of how language gets figured is everywhere evident. "Nothing happens that is not the mind/to us, this side of Ouch."--Tom Beckett
This review originally appeared in TapRoot Reviews #3,
Contact the editor, luigi-bob drake, at Burning Press
Copyright Burning Press 1993, 1995.