Reading the poems of Marianne Boruch (The Book of Hours) at first seems an intellectual exercise. Those in Eventually One Dreams the Real Thing are scattered with references to J.M.W. Turner, Arthur Conan Doyle, Eadweard Muybridge, several to Emily Dickinson--as well as to gardens, birds and even drone warfare. They are filled with startling imagery, truncated narrative and hyphenated portmanteau words tossed in as surprising adjectives and verbs. But give these poems time and readers will become lost in thought or chuckle at her cleverness.
When Boruch enters a museum in "The Painting," for example, she sees more than a museum-goer might by actually looking at the art: "Two brush-stroked boats, so-so weather, more detail/ forward than aft.... That old guy bumming cigarettes for real/ looked the part of another century, the ancient fisherman/ contentedly mending nets in a time/ with time to retie knots." In one of several dawn poems, "Aubade with Grass, Some Trees," tranquility is interrupted by background highway sounds--prompting her to observe that "No song is complete without/ some straying into a minor key." The gods play their roles in "Prehistory," set at Scotland's National Museum: "In return, the gods/ do what? Storms, good and bad. Life is short, or it's not./ There's luck and unluck. Reward, revenge... to let live or smite." These accomplished, often humorous poems very much live up to her directives in "The Art of Poetry": "And elegant/ is good. And story. And edgy/ half-uttered in fragments is good.... Don't be/ maudlin, says the garden, don't/ be pretty pretty pretty." Boruch dazzles. --Bruce Jacobs, founding partner, Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kan.