Undress, She Said

by Doug Anderson

In Doug Anderson's newest collection, Undress, She Said , we accompany a speaker undaunted by the complex reckonings of history, evolving relationships, and an aging body, a speaker that, besieged by a storm, resolves to "set out into it, the wind / playing the rigging like a harp." Over and over in these pages, Anderson makes music of the gales and rain and turbulent sea. These poems voyage from the subtle violences of a religious upbringing to complex remembrances of time served in the Vietnam War to contemporary emergencies of real and political plagues. Yet, no matter the subject, compassion rudders these lyrics as they turn always and at last to myriad beloveds-the enigmatic Angel of Death, literary and mythological influences, kind strangers, the constantly elusive and elusively constant moon. These words reach out to the reader the way the poet addresses frozen joy from the confines of "Red berry trapped in ice, / let me touch you."

116 pages, Paperback

Published September 15, 2022

Reviews

[Richard Wayne · Rating 5 out of 5]

This reviewer heard Doug Anderson read from Undress, She Said, and it was bull’s eye after bull’s eye. There is sexual passion in the book, but it’s so human and honest it seems clean, an integral part of a life from which Anderson didn’t hide. Later I found the poem where the “she” in the title tells the narrator to undress. The ‘she” is death.

At the reading referred to above, Anderson overshot the time limit. Usually when poets do that, the audience snores. But this time they got even more awake because everything the poems said was needed.

Later, with eyes on the page, reading the book, I could see how clean, direct and well put together the poems were. Anderson knows many of the living U.S. poets I find most exciting to read, and can seriously talk with them on an equal footing. That’s not surprising if one looks at these poems.

[Corey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is strong stuff from a poet who sees clearly and is fearless. His first-person poems about the war in Vietnam are both brutal and beautiful. I think my favorite poem here is the devastating "Mother's Day" which ends "When you died you handed me/the black package to carry to the women I would know.//I will not."

[Rob Greene]

My review of this book can be found at Valparaiso Poetry Review:
https://www.valpo.edu/valparaiso-poet...