A review by xterminal
Angle of Yaw by Ben Lerner
4.0
Ben Lerner, Angle of Yaw (Copper Canyon, 2006)
I'm not entirely sure what I can say about Angle of Yaw that has not already been said dozens of times over, and I believe that's the first time I've ever said anything of the sort about a book of poetry. Angle of Yaw has become a bona fide poetry-world sensation, appearing on any number of best-of-the-decade lists and inspiring outright awe in critics and readers alike. Given such a buildup, I went into it with my skeptical loins girded, but aside from one misstep, Angle of Yaw actually lives up to the hype.
Finding a piece of this book to quote is next to impossible, as I kept seeing quotable pieces. Page after page after page of them. Almost every bit of this book is well-done, so I ended up just opening to a random page:
“People with all manner of phobia, a fear of heights or crowds or marketplaces, public speaking or blood or prime numbers, have been known to overcome their panic by wearing glasses, not with corrective lenses, but with lenses of plain shatterproof plastic, which not only impose a mediate plane between them and the object of their fear, but apply a comforting pressure to the bridge of the nose. When you encounter a person seized by terror, softly squeeze this bony structure, and he will be instantaneously subdued. In an age of contact lenses and laser surgery, it is safe to assume that a person who persists in wearing glasses in undergoing treatment.”
(—”Angle of Yaw”)
All the hallmarks of what make so much of Lerner's stuff so good are there, the unexpected juxtapositions, the humor, the rhythm, the absurdity of it all. The book is divided into five sections, three longer poems (“longer” here meaning a few pages), with sections two and four being halves of “Angle of Yaw”, a large collection of the short pieces of which you see an example above. (It is representative of the style of pieces to be found there, both in structure and in quality.) The first two “other” poems are also very good, with the book's sole misstep being the last, “Twenty-One Gun Salute for Ronald Reagan”. Lerner is a political poet, but throughout the rest of the book he keeps it subtle and funny, not letting it get in the way of his considerable poetic talent; the Reagan poem, on the other hand, just falls flat, listless, overtaken by the weight of the message Lerner is so obviously straining to get across. But if you ignore that last piece, though, this is a fantastic book, one likely to make my 25 best reads of the year list. ****
I'm not entirely sure what I can say about Angle of Yaw that has not already been said dozens of times over, and I believe that's the first time I've ever said anything of the sort about a book of poetry. Angle of Yaw has become a bona fide poetry-world sensation, appearing on any number of best-of-the-decade lists and inspiring outright awe in critics and readers alike. Given such a buildup, I went into it with my skeptical loins girded, but aside from one misstep, Angle of Yaw actually lives up to the hype.
Finding a piece of this book to quote is next to impossible, as I kept seeing quotable pieces. Page after page after page of them. Almost every bit of this book is well-done, so I ended up just opening to a random page:
“People with all manner of phobia, a fear of heights or crowds or marketplaces, public speaking or blood or prime numbers, have been known to overcome their panic by wearing glasses, not with corrective lenses, but with lenses of plain shatterproof plastic, which not only impose a mediate plane between them and the object of their fear, but apply a comforting pressure to the bridge of the nose. When you encounter a person seized by terror, softly squeeze this bony structure, and he will be instantaneously subdued. In an age of contact lenses and laser surgery, it is safe to assume that a person who persists in wearing glasses in undergoing treatment.”
(—”Angle of Yaw”)
All the hallmarks of what make so much of Lerner's stuff so good are there, the unexpected juxtapositions, the humor, the rhythm, the absurdity of it all. The book is divided into five sections, three longer poems (“longer” here meaning a few pages), with sections two and four being halves of “Angle of Yaw”, a large collection of the short pieces of which you see an example above. (It is representative of the style of pieces to be found there, both in structure and in quality.) The first two “other” poems are also very good, with the book's sole misstep being the last, “Twenty-One Gun Salute for Ronald Reagan”. Lerner is a political poet, but throughout the rest of the book he keeps it subtle and funny, not letting it get in the way of his considerable poetic talent; the Reagan poem, on the other hand, just falls flat, listless, overtaken by the weight of the message Lerner is so obviously straining to get across. But if you ignore that last piece, though, this is a fantastic book, one likely to make my 25 best reads of the year list. ****