Days of Unwilling

by Cal Bedient

In Days of Unwilling, Cal Bedient's third collection, a series of poems of mixed dialects and cadences weave together into a spiritual intensity that questions and queries our very existence in a universe that is spinning off its rails from the get go. Themes of art and artifice, sex and love, and even the ordinary details of life are alternately stripped down and dolled up with Bedient's signature polyphonic wizardry. Brilliantly going where it hurts, Bedient doesn't let up; he cuts a wild, wicked swath through each page with acumen and fecundity.

Genres: Poetry

80 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2008

Reviews

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cal Bedient is like a surgeon with a jackhammer. His eye is surgically sharp yet he willingly lets blood and pieces of flesh fly. This is not a lazy Sunday book, not a quoting over tea collection: it is rich and the language thick - keep ample time for digestion. It left me with a mineral-like taste in he back of my throat.

Read it and re-read it. This is the kind of book you need to suck the marrow out of - don't be afraid of getting a little dirty.

[Nina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cal Bedient's use of the English language is thought-provoking and unique. The poems in his third collection draw heavily from art, philosophy, music, literature and history. They beg to be read, then slowly re-read. I keep returning to brilliant lines such as
" your lipstick like watermelon split open on the rocks". Bedient's diverse references will stretch the mind of the reader.

[Sandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great!

[Steven Felicelli · Rating 2 out of 5]

Either contemporary poets have begun taking extravagant poetic license or my faculty for/love of poetry has waned.