David Tucker (2)

Despite winning a writing prize, this collection of poetry is reasonable and satisfying. It leaves out nothing important.
“Through the open window, in the heavy summer evening, a catbird lights on the backyard fence and sings the song it always sings, the song of staying in the same town all your life.” Always Here (21)
Tucker’s poems have a loyalty that makes their descriptions beautiful rather than condescending. His taste for truth comes through clearly, perhaps journalistic influence, but the nature of poetry as a medium allows just a sliver more affection to come through. As such, his narrative persona becomes someone the reader likes and trusts.
“A boy walking across the ball field an hour after the game—we’re covering that silence. We have reporters working hard, we’re getting to the bottom of all of it.” And This Just In (15)
The loyalty to place allows Tucker to take time with his work. He notices, in a way that waits to pass judgement, a patience that poetry does not often afford its subjects.
“And these gardens of dust, these palaces of sage grass, orchards of junked cars, I claim for Queen Isabella.” Columbus Discovers Linden, Tennessee (4)
His allusions capture a connection that is not necessarily physical, a connection between place and place in the way they are experienced, a tie that is through the human mind rather than a physical similarity or a simple shared metaphor.
“they come back now one by one, looking down at their notebooks and rubbing their eyes as they slouch to their desks, coats still on, and begin to punch in the names” Messengers (46)
A set of notes on this book can’t omit a comment on his newsroom poetry. He affords the newsroom both the bare physical reality of being a workplace and the inestimable wideness of being a channel through which all human experience is bottlenecked for another day’s print.… (more)