The Force of Desire; A Life of William Bronk
by Lyman Gilmore
Talisman House, 2006.
Paper. 348 pages.

This is a welcome look at the life of William Bronk, a fiercely intelligent poet and writer, from the author of Don’t Touch the Poet, a life of Joel Oppenheimer. Positive points about the book abound: we learn about Bronk’s unusual ability to write “one-offs” of his poems without stopping for revision; we find that he was on a first-name basis with Robert Frost; we see that we was a collector of his friends’ artworks, a grand host, a great cook, and an intriguing letter writer. The photographs, too, ground Bronk in the world he loved so much to describe. On the other hand, Gilmore’s book seems to lack the focus of his biography of Oppenheimer and to eventually break down into a collection of items about Bronk, rather than present a unified whole. Gilmore is at his weakest when he attempts to write about Bronk’s poetry and his homosexuality, both central subjects to any study of Bronk.

In short, the definitive biography of this major American poet has yet to be written. In the meantime, The Force of Desire remains a good introduction for those who are just discovering the work.

Two publications and their editors showed up at my reading on the 19th in Sheffield:

Broken Compass (0.1) is a mysterious little red pamphlet with a drawing of crows flocking over some houses as cover. The editor, Chris Brownsword, equally mysterious, faded into the rain after the reading. The anthology features some top-rate work by J.H. Prynne, Peter Finch, Alan Halsey, Geraldine Monk, Andy Hiirst and Scott Thurston, among others. The editor can be contacted at: cbrownsword@hotmail.com

Fire 27 is, as usual, an explosion of poetry weighing in at 203 pages. While Chris was tall and evaporating, Jeremy Hilton was grounded in cut-offs, a frizz of gray hair, sandals and a sad smile. He, too, left almost immediately after the reading after pressing his latest collection of poetry (Lighting Up Time; Selected Poems 1991–2004, with intro. by Harry Guest, Troubador) stacked atop Fire into my grip. Fire is important because it always gives a pretty good snapshot of a particular moment in the world of alternative literature. The collection starts out with good work from Chris Torrance and proceeds, proceeds, proceeds! Peter Gizzi is also here, as well as that mystery man Brownsword. Fire’s website can be found at: www.poetical.org.