Tangent Intro for Dana Ward, Portland, OR 6/27/09

Dana Ward's poetry reminds me of that arcade game where you have to steer a grapple over a pile of soft toys. The object is to get the claw to drop on the prize you want, then carry it off to the chute. In the real game, the toy seems a little sad once it comes down the chute—it never looks as good as it did when it was part of that colorful assortment behind the glass. In Dana's version, the claw never has to drop; you get to keep moving the grapple over a beckoning surface of beauty and detail