I was reading a poetry book and very much enjoying it. The writing was crisp and the language enthralling. But I had a nagging sense that I wasn't giving it 100%. As good as the poems were, there was something missing. And it was not the first time I've encountered this feeling.
I don't need to identify the book or author; this isn't a critique of her book. As I say, the problem I was having is not unique to this one book — I encounter it a lot. What bothered me this time was that the book was so good, I wanted the poems to succeed completely, but they stopped just short.
The problem is that the poems do a wonderful job of communicating that sense of the mysterious — the omen, the shadow — that haunts the narrator. But what is missing are sufficient clues to the specific mystery that is at the root of the poem. You are left with a deep sense of impending doom but no clarity about what the actual danger is lurking in the fog.
As I say, this is not an uncommon problem in modern poetry. Young poets do it all the time. (I know I did it in my early poems and probably am guilty of it occasionally even now.) But usually it is just one of several issues with novice writers so even the sense of something mysterious afflicting the narrator seems staged or artificial. In this case, the poems were so good, the overall emotional draw so complete, the work survives and even thrives without any specifics on what drives the poem, the engine behind the drama. But even then, after four or five poems you begin to wonder if there really is anything back there. Is it real or is the author just pressing buttons and pulling levers behind the curtain?
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