Curved Like an Eye

George Perreault

George Perreault’s Curved Like an Eye is an entrancing collection of works that explore personal loss and the resolution of love. It is a hard, distinct poetry in which the author prods the dark impulse of humanity and its own ache for renewal—its Spring when, as with the Ruminari, all possessions are burnt ceremoniously—leaving the spirit “clean, naked.” Perreault searches his own memory, his own yearnings, and finds not meaning or understanding, but brilliant and often haunting fragments of images tied to half-recollections of passions and vague motives. If at times he finds himself “clean, naked,” it is without denying the likelihood of soon falling back into familiar patterns. But it is this recognition of the oscillations of life’s familiar patterns where the transformation of the poet’s vision begins. The hard, often hostile particulars and people of his Western landscape shine forth brilliantly.

George Perreault was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1943. He has earned a degree in literature from Boston College and a doctorate from the University of New Mexico. Since the early 70’s he has worked primarily in rural areas of the West among “artists and farmers—holders of the only real wealth.”

A sample poem from the book

At the North Second Street Market

Why not start with:

what do you believe happens?

I say I believe I don’t know

except that we won’t rise like bread

or the sun drawing water.

We’ve spent too long

breathing onions and bell peppers

the wrinkled pungence of beets

their blood soaked stems

and the soft openness of squash.

But we might leach out

attenuate

gradually disengage

turn to other things

if there are other things.