Todd Boss
While I was in Toronto, I picked up Yellowrocket, the debut collection of American (Minnesota-based) poet Todd Boss. It was a book I'd heard recommended by a couple of people, so when I saw it on the shelf, I took it down for a look. It didn't take much reading to convince me this was a book I had to spend more time with.
And a delightful time it's been. It's a 120+ page book and contains about as many weaker, dispensable poems as one--or at least I--would expect to find in such a fat collection, but I absolutely love the best poems, and there are lots of them (which I'll be rereading for some time to come). Boss has a great website (link above), where you can read and hear him read several of his poems. I wasn't surprised to learn that a poet with such a good ear reads very well. (And you can hire him to write a poem for you!) Also awesome are the video poems of his on this site. Here's one I particularly like:
2 comments:
I'm glad you found his work.
I picked up Yellowrocket in the States last year and was a bit underwhelmed, mostly because I had incredibly high expectations from the poems of his I'd read in Poetry. But you're right, when he hits it it's out of the park.
My favourite: "What Yesterday Appeared a Scar"
Yeah, for all the good and very good poems in it, I thought the book would have been twice as strong at half the length. (Just taking "She Rings Me Up" out would have made a big difference. Oy.) It's a first book and feels like it. It'll be interesting to see how things go from here for him.
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