Blue Jay and Found Objects

Book excerpt: On the front jacket of this volume is a photograph I took at a museum ecology exhibit of a Blue Jay sculpted by “trash artist” artist Thomas Deininger from the collected flotsam and jetsam of the sea: pieces of iron, mesh, wood, plastic, and other cast-away items from many water ways — items which appear close-up on the back cover. The artist’s work is a literal reflection of the way the ragtag emotional and physical pieces of a life may also be compiled and wonderfully transformed through the language of poetry: the way in this collection one’s struggle with religious guilt is portrayed as an all-night “wrastle” with an angel; the way the arc of one’s life is mirrored in the bud and blossom of potted amaryllis bulbs; the way heaven might be traded in another poem for a slice of pizza; the way one’s troubling thoughts need to be extracted on another page with the help of an exorcist.