Two sequences of poems or stanzas, with each text accompanied by collaged images of J. F. Kennedy and related assassination imagery. The first sequence could be the voice of JFK speaking from the grave; it is a voice shorn of connections and identities, yet also the voice in us that connects all events and places: "Rocks are forming outside. They are growing into flowers of lava and time." The second sequence is called "The Chorus"--it includes the voices of Oswald, Ruby, Sirhan, and others, also speaking from death, circling around the themes of myth and history. The book concludes with an essay by Taylor discussing the evolution of American culture and of the need to put to rest certain obsessive symbols such as JFK, to release them to the underworld--a process in which the poet must take part (paradoxically, it would seem) by writing about them. A highly thought-provoking and evocative book, a meditation on culture and time.--John M. Bennett
This review originally appeared in TapRoot Reviews #3,
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Copyright Burning Press 1993, 1995.