American Music

Chris Martin (who is not the lead singer of Cold Play) is a fine example of a new generation of American poets who are as well-versed in Chuck Berry as they are in John Ashbery. The work -- written completely in tercets, a la Stevens or more contemporary poets like Liam Rector -- echoes the jaunty and observational tone of Frank O'Hara, but casts the cityscape of the poet's mind in a newer, 21st-century light. Poems like "Misdiagnosis," "A Geometry of Sleeplessness," and the title poem have a certain punkish irony to them but are never bitter or too witty for their own good. The human emotion always shines through. American Music is where poetry and indie rock meet.

Poetry. American Music, selected by C. D. Wright from over one thousand manuscripts as winner of the Hayden Carruth Award for New and Emerging Poets, is uniquely attuned to the feedback symphony of a modern city, the lyrical product of "an earnest rage born of the absurd." Chris Martin's poems reflect all things found in the urban environment: asphalt, subways, technology, strangers, the drudgery of work, the garbage trucks and open parks, fist fights and snapshots, fears and paranoia, loves and joys. Here is the constant sense of life hurtling forward without the time to reflect, within a city rife with opportunities: "I can practically / Hear all those words out / There amassing to make the journey / Inward."

Hailing from Brooklyn by way of Minnesota, San Francisco, and Colorado Springs, Chris Martin is a teacher, rapper, and poet. American Music is his first book. He wrote it for you and other strangers.

Publisher: Copper Canyon Press
Distributor: Copper Canyon Press
Publication Date: 11-01-2007
Pages: 96
Measurements: 8oz