Ed Ochester (1939–2023)

"Ed Ochester has his thumb on the American pulse and his ear tuned to the American voice--in all its urban-suburban-backyard-backwoods- rustbelt-ad-agency and Hollywood-inspired dreaming and folly. He smiles at it, he loves it, he makes us love it too. For he is also a gardener who knows the names of things, and knows, as well, that "we have no single lives,/ we are grass, trees,/ hidden roots intertwined/ mile upon mile." I salute Ochester's Whitmanic yawp and tenderness." --Alicia Ostriker

The key word for this poetry collection is "accessible." There is no poem in here which, pace the FCC, could not be read on Garrison Keillor's The Writer's Almanac to the profit and complete comprehension of all listeners. Think Billy Collins. Well, you don't have to, because Billy Collins is in here. Narratives, mostly personal, are barely encumbered by line breaks. Thought and imagination are not taxed one bit. You never have to wonder what an individual poem is doing, because it's saying show more it, clearly and distinctly. Thank God, this is not the whole story on what is "American Poetry NOW." show less