The glass age

Swensen's recent thematic book-length sequences (on Christian art, archaic inventions and the human hand) combine scholarly meticulousness with a postmodern flair for dislocation, cementing Swensen's reputation as an important experimental writer. Her new collection explores the figurative possibilities of glass: as windows, subjects of paintings, and photographic and cinematic lenses. Three sections of mixed prose and verse poems trace the life and work of modernist painter Pierre Bonnard, whose "work implicitly asks what it is to see, and what it is to look through," interwoven with explorations of other artists and media. Swensen (Goest) makes the case that "a window acts as an inverse prism, gathering the intense pigments of the fractured world back into a clarity of unrestricted light"; by extension, she makes this point about language itself. The same and the opposite could be said of her poems. At times, there is too much history and not enough poetry to convince a reader that "A life-sized window is the size of a life." At her best, however, Swensen draws relationships between disparate elements across time, space and discipline with a magician's touch. Her work continues to meditate on the act, and art, of seeing and saying. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

In this magisterial work, Swensen melds a discussion of glass, light, and painting into an acute study of the nature of perception. It's a relief to escape the ubiquitous "I" of contemporary poetry and encounter a collection that so deftly takes a larger view. (LJ 9/15/06) (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

From "The Open Window": Photography replaced the river, which, due to unexpected complications, resulted in the Great Age of the Train. Bonnard started photographing just as the snapshot became possible. Glass negatives gave way to strips of film, and the river froze, intact. In shadow and light, the Seine, said Marthe, standing in the garden, frame after frame. We are multiplying the things we can and do see through. Excerpted from The Glass Age by Cole Swensen All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.