BASIL KING ~

Marsh Hawk Press

R E A D     &     L I S T E N

This is one of my favorite books for 2017

and I'm reading all the time.

The book has all the patience and spontaneity I find lacking

in too many books of poems published in the United States —

King's more resembling an era when Ted Berrigan's The Sonnets and

Frank O'Hara's Lunch Poems snapped crackled and popped.

King is as brave and honest as another marvel, Muriel Rukeyser.

His overlapping text structure and flow of thoughts

make for extra fine mingling — he is indeed a
jewel thief or perhaps the Prime Minister.

I started to well up on page 138-139

but then I'm a Leo.

Don't hesitate.

[ BA ]