Space Struck

Space Struck Description

"Must-Read Poetry: October 2019" by Nick Ripatrazone, The Millions &Best Books of 2019,& Book Riot This astonishing, self-assured debut leads us on an exploration to the stars and back, begging us to reconsider our boundaries of self, time, space, and knowledge. The speaker writes, &&the universe/is an arrow/without end/and it asks only one question;/How dare you?& Zig-zagging through the realms of nature, science, and religion, one finds St. Francis sighing in the corner of a studio apartment, tides that are caused by millions of oysters &gasping in unison,& an ark filled with women in its stables, and prayers that reach God fastest by balloon. There&s pathos: &When my new lover tells me I&m correct to love him, I/realize the sound isn&t metal at all. It&s not the coins rattling/ on concrete, but the fingers scraping to pick them up.& And humor, too: &&even the sun&s been sighing Not you again/when it sees me.& After reading this far-reaching, inventive collection, we too are startled, space struck, our pockets gloriously &filled with space dust.& "Online, month by month, I watched it happen: a new genre of poem was emerging, but I had no clue who was responsible. These brainy poems didn't wait to spout off trivia, historical and scientific&'Pavlov Was the Son of a Priest' (a characteristically quotable title) recalls that 'the moon smells like spent gunpowder,' then divulges some smoldering self-knowledge: 'I'm sorry/I couldn't hide my joy when you said lonely.' . . . [T]hese poems were fluent in funniness, retweetably jokey: 'I'm//the vice president of panic, and the president is/missing.' But once the play subsided, you found yourself moved&unaccountably, almost, until you discovered, reading back up the poem, that even the zaniest elements had several parts to play. What looked like a genre, I soon realized, was all the handiwork of one poet. Their name is Paige Lewis. . . . Don't doubt them."-&Christopher Spaide, Poetry