It’d been a couple of months since I actually finished a poetry review for Bookslut, but, happily, one made it in time for this month’s issue. The book is Matthew Zapruder’s 2nd collection, The Pajamaist:
Matthew Zapruder’s self-assessment here is, I think, entirely apt: The Pajamaist, his second book of poems, is rewarding when it moves from inscrutability to pure transparency. It’s a delicate balancing act that he pulls off: Neither wholly experimental nor wholly contemplative, Zapruder’s poetry repeatedly dramatizes the mutual entwining of these stances. What makes The Pajamaist worth reading, then, is less a particular concept than an attempt to enact that “clear mystery†as frequently as possible.