Archive - March 19, 2011

Lake and Other Poems of Love in a Foreign Land by Jeff Fearnside (Kazakhstan 2002–04) Kent, Ohio: Standing Rock Cultural Arts $12.00 February 2011 Reviewed by Kenneth C. Wylie (Sierra Leone 1961–63) I LIKE THESE POEMS. Reading them the first time through I did not stop to think about the ways I might enjoy them, or perceive them, but found myself grabbed by their particulars, and of course the alien places in which they are set. Which is not to say that I immediately ‘enjoyed’ lines like this, you’re not to blame for the way people think or don’t here. I don’t always understand the culture but rather that I found this poet bringing me in. Though his narrative style is a little jarring, I came to enjoy his encounter with a strange culture — one he seems immersed in if not altogether comfortable in — that of Kazakhstan and its environs. He pulled me back to dim . . .