March 15, 2010
Robert Hershon
continued
puzzling, amusing, or occasionally luminous. Robert Hershon is a poet who sees the world turned ever so slightly toward the absurd and the fabulous. In his new book, Calls from the Outside World, Hershon writes about those moments that come alive under his observation and in the light of his humor. In "Messiah on Varick Street" the poet sees a "man in a gray suit" who "eats his lunch in Sounds of Brazil/He seems to be an ordinary citizen/until the light catches his earring/and makes it dazzle." But then the poet realizes that the man is not wearing an earring. One bright shaft of light is penetrating the city, moving through the window, and marking this particular man:
| This one, this one! It's the sign from heaven all America awaits Divinity! Take my life, my wife, my wide-eyed babies! I will run home to get you my life savings Until then — please take my watch |
Hershon enjoys the moment and the wild situation in his own imagination, but there is no doubt that he kept his watch.
This puzzled and bemused view of his city and his country is often the subject of Hershon's poems. "International Incidents" chronicles just a few moments where he sees the ordinary things of America in a foreign light that makes them funny and emblematic:
| The teachers in the lounge crowd around the Swedish visitor You must be very proud one of them beams to be Swedish She has no idea what this means She says, I don't dislike being Swedish |
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