The Algorithm of I

Angebote / Angebote:

The Algorithm of I is Jack Crocker'ssecond collection of poems.In The Algorithm of I, Jack Crocker holdsup a mirror to the human conditionwhose reflections, while intensely personal, are timeless in their search for anessential self. Thinking of the three greatand simple images in whose presence theartist's heart first opened-"the gospelwomb of Delta dirt, " his "father's walls, "or "Linda Boykin's lips"-the speakertracks himself in the multiple selvesorbiting the center.The chronology suggests a constant stateof becoming. From the "ancestral prison"of birth to being "Programmed betweenthe contradiction of predestination andthe hubris of free, " imagination becomesthe way to reconcile life's painful disequilibriumbetween the aspirations ofhope and inevitable concessions to despair.While every leaf may be "a tongueof grief, " "spring revives the beauty ofdeath."But like "spiraled genes a Monet haslaced, " it is less sadness that draws us tothese poems than the osmosis of intelligenceand heart that shines through sobrilliantly. Like his hero Sisyphus, "stepby completed step, " the poet's revenge isstronger than his rock, giving and vitalizing.Compelled to make art out of "theseeing of doubt" he arrives at cautioushope as "The battered atoms of the heartgo on arranging themselves/in the possibilityof human love and revolt, " seekingtruth "in the light of pretend.