by David Trinidad
Turtle Point Press 2011
Reviewed by Gina Myers

“The wild angels roar into town”

Dear Prudence: New & Selected Poems is a formidable collection that makes a strong case for David Trinidad to have a part in the conversation of current major American poets. Weighing in at nearly 500 pages of poems–including 122 pages of new material–the book serves as a primer to anyone who has not previously read his work and as a treasure to those who have long been fans.

The book opens with the newer poems and contains selections organized chronologically from 1975-2007. It becomes clear that Trinidad established his voice early, and he has continued to write about his obsessions, from pop culture–music, movies, Barbie, the color pink, and Patty Duke–to his poetic heroes–Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, and James Schuyler–to his family, friends, and love life throughout his poetic career thus far. The poems run the gauntlet from dark to light, from serious to humorous, from concise to expansive, but overall Trinidad’s singular voice comes through. New York School via Los Angeles, he successfully represents two strains of the New York School: James Schuyler’s dailiness (see, for example, “November”) and Ted Berrigan’s playfulness (“The Ten Best Episodes of The Patty Duke Show”), while at times his musical repetition recalls contemporary David Shapiro, and his autobiographical poems recall his confessionalist heroes, Plath and Sexton.

One of the many brilliant things captured in this collection is Trinidad’s commitment to going over-the-top, whether it is writing a haiku for each episode of Peyton Place, or playing with villanelles and pantoums, forms that rely on heavy repetition. Trinidad’s use of these forms–often featuring longer-than-usual lines and pop culture subjects, as in “Hack, Hack, Sweet Has-Been”–seems to make the forms strange and silly, and yet he frequently pulls it off in a way that results in something great, such as in the ending of the pantoum “Movin’ With Nancy”:

She sings “Lightning’s Girl” and “Friday’s Child”
She puts herself in the hands of writer/producer Lee Hazelwood
She sings “Love Eyes” and “Sugar Town”
She co-stars with Elvis Presley in Speedway

She puts herself in the hands of writer/producer Lee Hazelwood
Three gold records later
She co-stars with Elvis Presley in Speedway
She rides on Peter Fonda’s motorcycle

Three gold records later
She has developed an identity of her own
She rides on Peter Fonda’s motorcycle
The wild angels roar into town

She has developed an identity of her own
Nancy Sinatra in 1966
The wild angels roar into town
It is almost time to grow up

The list poem is another form Trinidad turns uses well, whether it is a more straightforward list like the one in “From Ted Hughes’ List of Suggested Writing Exercises for Sylvia Plath,” or whether it is more ambling, as in the prose blocks that make up “Mothers.” Due to their culmulative nature, many of the poems resist being excerpted; for example, “The Patty Duke Show: The Complete First Season,” which consists of one sentence summaries of each episode’s plot, loses its effect if not taken as a whole.

Throughout the collection, Trinidad shares information about the things and people he unabashedly loves, and in this way, the poems may offer history lessons too. As someone who has read Plath’s poetry but does not know a whole lot about her life (beyond her death), I learned about Assia Wevill moving into Court Green, and Assia’s suicide just six years after Plath’s. And “Meet the Supremes” offers a glimpse into the time when girl groups ruled the airwaves. Additionally, Trinidad’s naming of lesser-known writer friends is likely to send readers on a search for their work too.

Trinidad bares a lot of personal history in this collection too–from the loss of his close friend Rachel Sherwood in a car accident he was nearly killed in too, to his struggles with alcohol, to conflicts with his father, to the time he was raped. There are one night stands and poems about his years in New York with his former partner Ira, and there is even a poem written from the perspective of their dog Byron. In “Poem Under the Influence,” Trinidad shares missing out on his opportunity to meet James Schuyler:

Tom Carey had arranged for me to meet James Schuyler at
          the Chelsea Hotel.
Running behind (drinks with Cheri Fein), I called to say I’d be
          late. Tom consulted
Schuyler and came back to the phone: “Jimmy says not to bother
          to come.” Stunned,
I stammered, “Well, tell him I think he’s the best living American
          poet.” The next morning,
Tim shook me awake. Tom had called. When he told Schuyler what
          I’d said, Schuyler snapped,
“You can tell the little idiot he just missed meeting the best living
          American poet.”

Of course, later they did meet and Schuyler’s influence on Trinidad can be seen in the physical appearance–the long, skinny stanzas–of many of Trinidad’s poems and in their daily subject manner, as in, for example, “Monday, Monday”:

Radio’s reality when
the hits just keep
happening: “I want
to kiss like lovers
do…” Why is it
I’ve always mistaken
these lyrics for my
true feelings? The
disc jockey says it’s
spring and instantly
I’m filled with such
joy! Is it possible
that I’m experiencing
nature for the first
time? In the morning
the sun wakes me…

However, Trinidad frequently flattens the more daily poems out so that they become more diaristic or strict in their reporting of events and lack the internal reflection he demonstrates above.

There are other authors, such as Elaine Equi and Bruce Covey, working in a similar vein as Trinidad, though each brings something unique to make the style their own. Trinidad’s blending of his various influences and inspirations, both high and low, sets him apart. Dear Prudence: New & Selected Poems is a great glimpse into the career of this prolific and important writer. And though we’re in an age where each reader creates his or her own personal canon, Dear Prudence could well appeal to a wide array of readers, whether they’re searching for historical facts, pop culture nostalgia, lyric playfulness, confessional narrative, or literary gossip.

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