Gabriel Antonio Reed’s fanatical love resembles one of Caddy Compson’s soliloquies disassembled into stanzas. I am by no means saying that the poem is derivative, in fact, Reed composes with such a tactful distinction that the poem seems to teeter perfectly on a tightrope between chaos and order. It takes a rare talent to form a coda from platitudes, but Reed manages it with a poetic savoir faire I’ve only seen in Faulkner. The poet knows when to slip and when to punch, and when to flurry like a drunken lunatic. Such a poem is truly a radical burst of emotion rendered immaculately on the page.
Metamorphoses : Seth & Osiris
