Purr

by Mary Ann Samyn

Poetry. PURR is Mary Ann Samyn's fourth book of poetry. "This poetry hovers between irony and true despair" - Lynn Emanuel. "Here is a poetry built of sensory data so sharply honed as to make even the mundane microfibre or the quotidian stone path a journey, a finding, a deep understanding of the world. And who couldn't love a book where Doris Day and Nancy Sinatra are as essential and mysterious as saints?"- D.A. Powell

Genres: Poetry

73 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really like Mary Ann Samyn. I like how she constructs her poems and the way she looks at things very intently. Some of her poems deal with language itself, which isn’t something I usually go for but I think she handles it well, as in the exquisite first poem in the collection, “Beneath Speech” (link below). Her own word choices and diction are fairly vernacular, but her topics are intellectual. When I say she looks at things intently I don’t mean boys' behinds, dumpsters, or her neighbor's Camaro.

And now I will go off on a tangent.... about the PAGES. Aside from the black flyleaf in the front and back, the book has 96 pages (48 pp x 2 sides) of luxury paper - creamy and so heavy it would probably burn as long as "Little Dorrit," which is 12x as long. But what’s remarkable in "Purr" is a full 35 pages are absolutely blank. I don’t count the functional pages, like the dedication. There are 35 poems in total, most of which fit on one page, the notable exception being a poem that covers 5 pages. Apparently the white space is part of the concept - I guess it represents silence, or, more likely, pauses in thought. Personally I found it distracting.

On another note, I think blurbers should keep their feet on the ground. Is it helpful to say this book will “bring eyesight to the blind?” No, and I can hardly take it seriously.

Here’s "Beneath Speech" and "Wink," another poem I enjoyed:

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/pr...

http://www.wmich.edu/newissues/titles...

[Hfromlak · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazing. Beautiful use of white space.