John T. Irwin (1940–2019)

As Long As It's Big by John Bricuth is a rather strange tale of a divorce court hearing. Framing the poignant and moving testimony of Mrs. and Mr. Fish are rollicking, rather scabrous, episodes of Mrs. Fish's elder sister, an Irish schoolbus of a woman, physically attacking her brother-in-law, his lawyer, policemen, and the judge. Bricuth's blank verse tercets are supple enough to handle both the farce --

She yells, " So they've sent the Black and
Tans." Well, judge, I'm blacker by a lot
Than show more Dobbs, but ain't no way no one could call him

"Tan," So I thinks, Who! we gots a regular
Looney on our hands. We try arrestin' her
And right away the scufflin' starts.

and the pain of loss --

Maybe he was wrong, but that's the sense
He'd got. Well there it was. I asked him did he
Realize we'd never get trust back like it'd

Been, that life for us would be this
Mended plate that couldn't take extremes
Of heat or cold, take any careless handling--

On the backcover, Harold Bloom praises it as a "new mode of American poetic tragicomedy....an exuberant chant...." I wasn't quite so rhapsodic, but I did find this a moving, if jolting, quick read. show less

The most unusual and incredibly inventive "Poem" of all times, to me, a 7-act scenario of court proceedings of a divorce, alternately speaking re the judge and the two parties, all this after their child committed suicide