In Aggregate of Disturbances, Michele Glazer confronts the slipperiness of language and perception as she probes natural processes—the lives of insects, the uncertainty of love, and the deaths of human beings. Nature’s beauty interests Glazer less than the fact that it is chaotic, amoral, redundant, charming, and indifferent to human concern—qualities that are, in these poems, turned into another kind of beauty. “The stalk was knocked flat &the allium’s great lavender sphere / kissed the dirt &in the aftermath the pendulous blossomed / tip bobbed like a wand madly attempting to enchant-enchant-enchant. / / I wanted to believe that it happened to amuse me.”
These taut lyrical poems negotiate between desire for something irrefutable and an uneasy bedrock of paradox. In the interstices, Aggregate of Disturbances breaks open language and experience to offer a glimpse of “the eye on the other side.”
On So
So,
the navigational
show-
stopper, cliff-
hanger,
the let's not go into this.
I heard so and so I thought
because would follow.
We will die so we are human
but we are human for we will die,
isn’t it beautiful hasn’t it lasted
“Michele Glazer is a poet of rare integrity—integrity of mind, heart, and expression. Aggregate of Disturbances springs from the inside of nuance and feeling. One senses at every turn how clear-eyed yet emotionally committed this writing is. At once dispassionate and tender, sexy, and edgy. A singular voice, killer diction, a tough mind, and a vulnerable heart. This is exceptional writing, of that striking quality that compels rereading and rewards it.”—Marvin Bell
“Like the processes of the natural world which are the frequent object of her close observations, Michele Glazer’s poems build up complexity from seemingly simple things—an arm raising a fork, fairy shrimp transparent as desire, a dog's mouth full of feathers. ‘In the blind I am all eyes,’ and her gaze is clear and deep. This book’s elegies, unflinchingly focused on the body that is lost or being lost, remind us that we too are part of the natural world and subject to its inexorable laws, the first of which is death. Glazer wrests assumptions from the lightness of her words to look behind assumptions and open up words: ‘strangeness arranges itself around her.’ This book makes pattern and promise out of its accumulated agitations.”—Reginald Shepherd, author of Otherhood
“Aggregate of Disturbances is a stunning collection of meditations on language, landscape, and loss. Glazer is comfortable writing any kind of poem and moves easily between language poetry and metaphoric or narrative lyric modes. This is one of the most original and vibrant collections of poetry that I have read in a long while.”—Sheryl St. Germain, author of Swamp Songs: The Making of an Unruly Woman
Contents
Blinds & a Bittern
I
Wherein space is constructed that matter may reside in…
Matter
A Small Infidelity
Firefly
box
On So
2
Translucencies, her death
3
Letter
Conjunctions
Drive
Ad Infinitum
Real Life #11: Hummingbird
John Is in the Next Room
Inscape
4
Echo to Narcissus
Real Life #14: Vagaries
Woman Sitting for a Portrait at a Warehouse Sale
Sonnet
The Mathematics of Fire
Feathers
Early Romance: Japanese Garden (in the heart of the city)
The sculptor muses on his black-billed magpie
Valediction
Fragment’s Song
Moon Casings
5
Map
Historic House, Astoria
Happy
The Fecundity
Home
The Infinitive Imperative
Lament
Home Is a Stone House
