Along the Rails

by Elio Schneeman

"Elio Schneeman turns some interesting corners in ALONG THE RAILS. His writing is strong, often quite sophisticated. He is sometimes boyish or raw, but he writes smart, and his perceptions of feeling--real feeling, oblique feeling--are only self-conscious enough to be smartly written. I am impressed by how substantial he sounds, and how solitary."--John Godfrey Poetry.

76 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1991

Reviews

[W.B. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been enjoying this book again. I highly recommend it. Reading it now as summer slips into autumn and this slide seems to complement these poems. The colors of emotion in the poems change slowly like the beta carotenes and anthocyanins of autumn. As a teenager, he was Ted Berrigan's protege ("C" Press published one of Schneeman's books). I'm not a huge Berrigan fan. There are some poems of his that I do love. I'm not crazy about those bright Ted Berrigan headlights, high beaming it most of the time, but I like the way they come through Elio Schneeman's bedroom window and make a sort of liquid on his ceiling for him to stare at. I feel Schneeman's poems are like Berrigan's poems muted, reconnected with their emotions that they disowned in some sort of masculine bravado. Schneeman's poems are the softer Taoist shadow of sharp city corners.

I AM

I soak my aching body
in the bathtub.
I can't hear a thing,
except the footsteps
of a cat
across the highway floor.
Of course,
I'm still smoking
as the rain recedes
into the quiet
glimmer of night,
into morning's
promising liquid.
Now I return
to your body in bed,
and walk across
sheets of glass
in my dream.

[great hit · Rating 3 out of 5]

Juvenilia but the fun kind.