Out-stubborned
emotional sea-urchin
in the shallows (stabbed me) in the shallows of the heart ---
~ Entropical (the Bulk)

Eruv by Eryn Green is his first published collection of poetry. Green, with this collection, won the Yale Series of Younger Poets. The Yale Series is the oldest literary award in the United States and open to poets under forty who have not published a volume of poetry. Green earned his MFA from the University of Utah and his PhD in creative writing from the University of Denver in 2013. This collection also has an introduction written by Carl Phillips.

I saved the introduction of this book for last. It is well written and informative, but poetry is personal and I wanted an unprejudiced experience before allowing others to explain it to me. This collection does for the most part remain out of doors. Nature is a continuous theme through the work. From the beginning when he gives the latin name for staghorn sumac, to big-tooth maples, to references to the night sky calling it “lights in the ceiling” or using other imagery.

I was driving downtown
when what I thought
was chandelier
was actually sky*

~Blackout

The poems follow an open form with standard lines instead of paragraphs. In places some lines are indented and irregularly spaced to give a pace or rhythm to the reader. Other times as in the opening poem, “First Walk,” the spacing is creative and few lines appear on each page with what appears to be perforations across the page made by dashes, to break up individual thoughts.

Green has written an outstanding collection of poetry. If I had not known better I would have assumed it was written by a mature poet. He delivers paragraphs of imagery in few lines. The more traditional subject material is refreshing in today’s environment of experimentation and expanding boundaries. Phillips’s forward gives an excellent introduction and traces some of Green’s influences. A very readable and enjoyable collection.


*(The second and fourth line are indented)
This was a Goodreads giveaway book. ( )