Mental spasms heaving Samantha Dobbins, my first love, Riding snowmobiles through the brain circuits, and insane The gluey armpits, underwear in knots, coffee grounds Fairchild spells out the particulars of his philosophy of poetry in “Wittgenstein, Dying,” which serves as his own ars poetica: This is poetry that turns Archibald MacLeish’s infamous declaration that “A poem should not mean / But be” on its head, for this work is not afraid to mean and be.
While many poets seem increasingly willing to accommodate our allegedly ever-diminishing attention spans and exchange the didactic potential of poetry for flimsy satire, the poems of Usher are impressive because they demand and deserve attention, focus, and time. Here is a truly dynamic and challenging text, one that is grounded in the poetics that Fairchild has carved out for himself while challenging readers’ assumptions about what that poetics can do. In Usher, his newest book, readers will be delighted to find that Fairchild’s careful and keen eye is as vibrant and vital as ever, and, while he certainly continues to write the contemplative and erudite working-class profiles that have garnered him so much attention, he is by no means resting on his laurels. At seventy years old, he shows no signs of peaking. Fairchild is clearly an accomplished narrative poet.
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