D.A. Powell is in fine form in his fifth book of poems. After winning the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award for 2009's Chronic, this collection spreads his talents so broadly that its poems are arranged in two parts: the somewhat grim melancholy of Useless Landscape and the more playful, edgy eroticism of A Guide for Boys. Combining his pleasure in puns and slang with more traditional language and structure (even sestinas and sonnets), Powell drifts over a landscape of central Californian flora, gay sex, 1970s funk, the physiology of aging, insect control and even high school marching bands.
Powell finds himself writing as an older man, "Winded, white-haired body. Splotchy skin./ A face uneven as a river jag/ and asperous as the mullein's flannel leaves." He reminisces about a promiscuous sexual encounter: "That's the way we talked./ We lived in an age of adolescence and irony./ Unless I'm thinking of another dude. That happens a lot." And the past sadly reminds him that "sorry is the heart/ that knows/ what's around the bend."
However, the poem "A Little Less Kettledrum, Please" perhaps best captures Powell's more prevalent tone of fun and optimism. Adrift in his school's clumsy marching band, he keeps a wary eye: "We do a scramble pattern then./ That's when I imagine I am to be struck/ by the first trombone." As they finally leave the field, Powell proudly notes that "I may be the least of the piccolos,/ But mine's the tune you'll whistle as you leave." This new collection may not leave you whistling, but it should leave you smiling. --Bruce Jacobs, founding partner, Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kan.