Ostentation of Peacocks

by Daniel Kane

The funny thing about Daniel Kane s book, given its rather showy title, is how unostentatious his poems really are. Excessive, yes, gorgeously so; and out there in bravely following his, or his given language s, inclinations. What is anything that can be observed or thought and how do our words account for, and even augment, that sketchy existence How is a poem a fact if anything can be Peculiar to Kane is his often headlong, always nimble variant on how to transmutation, an ostensible care for writing as fitting together a world in words as if out of nowhere. This remarkable book adds up, heartily, to its own heap big meal . Bill Berkson "Daniel Kane is the revitalising voice twenty-first century poetry needs, and Ostentation of Peacock is a full display of his transatlantic talent. Fresh, funny and visionary, this book offers the reader a real world of fantasy with the lyric grace of early Ashbery and the prophetic ambition of early Ginsberg." Jeremy Noel-Tod The variegated plumage of Kane s elegant, iridescent, fan-tailed poems is a constant delight. Some are indeed as ostentatious as peacocks in their pride, but others obliquely and movingly mime uncertainty, confusion, and loss. This is a gorgeous collection, and one that deserves a harmonious welcome . Mark Ford Fun is missing from this world everywhere; but here it is, at times pitiless but still fun. Daniel Kane s personable imagination dwells in the house of free a posture of meditation on the couch upon which there is ought to do but muse on things of a consequence neither relativized nor sanitized. Absolute inquiry into creatures-objects-ideas produces, in this leavened mind, a flurry of response that is a cosmos or order or harmony in a bag full of hard to categorize leaves . Not only fun has been missing, but also compassion, and that is here too, with singular freshness and poignancy . Rebecca Wolff

70 pages, Hardcover

First published October 15, 2008

Reviews

[Charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

a NY school wonder! Great fun, twisting as it goes. Kane's mind is full of corners filled with first chirps, grackles, and tangles measures. Well worth the time.

[Aaron Belz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I simply adore this book. I come back to it time and time again. It actually mentions me!