reading scooby-doo

well not really but i bought nicholas a new scooby-doo flick tonight and he watched it as i read a model year [coconut books, 2009] by gina myers. for some reason the background noise of 'those meddling kids' was a good counterpoint to myers' quiet, lovely verse. i can't tell you the reasons why. perhaps it's because i'm a scooby-doo fan myself and i just like the noises the franchise makes.

at any rate, myers has achieved a marvelous collection of poems that deserve a wide audience. that she is young, or youngish, is evident from pieces that deal with problems that are endemic to many young people just starting up with their lives: highly educated, underemployed, overworked and low pay along with worries about how one will make the rent and the bills.

yet despite sounding pitying myers' subtle handling of these subjects, along with the subjects of home, alienation, family and death, moves the reader toward a warmer embrace of living. here are poems of a kind of inner-exile that creates a tension in the speaker[s] to seek out family. perhaps that the tone myers uses for family is what i find so winning in this book. family is important to me, and i gather to myers as well for the poems move from the section of living in brooklyn titled young professionals in the rain where she catalogs those problems of the young and later returns to her natal state of michigan in the section called homecoming.

myers is a literary poet and takes from her reading what she can use. thus there is a sonnet using the first lines of poems by robert creeley, a poem titled 'rilke', and poems that work their way out of writers as various as marina tsvetaeva and barbara guest. the results are strong, mellifluous and somehow, at least to this reader, comforting.

myers concludes this excellent collection of poetry with the long poem 'a model year' that ends with the speaker's head hitting the pillow and coming to rest. a fine ending to a hectic year. take it from me this is first-rate writing. i've been a reader of gina myers for some years now after finding some of her poems at the old zine canwehaveourballback. this book is worth your attention. you can find out more about the book and how to seize a copy here.