Consolation Miracle (Crab Orchard Award Series in Poetry)

Rating:
Summary: Loudly proclaim...'I Love "Space"'
Review: A friend recently sent me a crude, tattered chapbook entitled "Space" by Chad Davidson. It was a long lyric - the daunting kind that usually finds its way under the stack for another day. But for some reason the gods smiled on me that day and I turned the page to one of the most thought-provoking and profoundly beautiful reads in a long while. I traced that chapbook to this Chad's first book, "Consolation Miracle" - unquestionably a contemporary playmaker in a classical, throwback jersey.

Rating:
Summary: Make Room, Read "Space"
Review: If you're reading this, you have an interest in poetry, and if you have an interest in poetry, the good kind, the dynamic and moving kind, you should own this book. You'll be lucky to get a first printing.

There is a sly wisdom in these poems about the things of this world as remarkable as what we find in Richard Wilbur. In fact, the lines are as well-wrought as Wilbur. Considering Davidson's authority, his ability to teach us so much fact, history, and trivia, we are reminded of the old standards: of Auden, Lowell, or Bishop. But the poems seem to have a contemporary sheen all their own. The long poem "Space" is one of the few contemporary long lyrics worth reading.

Consolation Miracle is a mature collection (a minor miracle?) in a time when so many poets are settling for "poetry" or "the idea of a poem" rather than poems, when poets are praising artifice rather than art. It might be the strongest first book of poetry in the last ten years.

Rating:
Summary: One of the best
Review: Only Pablo Neruda can be compared to Davidson's celebrations of the objects of ordinary life in such a way that I have to throw the book down after each poem and sigh, let out exclamation points and whimperings of jealousy before continuing to the next poem. When I finish all the poems, I read them over and over again, often shaking my head at every line in disbelief of such brilliance. Consolation Miracle is charming and sexy. What a poet. What a book.