Gizzi, Peter: Archeophonics

Wesleyan University Press, 2017

In his sixth full-length collection—a 2016 National Book Award finalist—Gizzi tends the anarchic gardens of American lyricism with mature charm. He is nimbly in control, restrained, meticulously sculpting, stirring up an enchanting bouquet as he threads legato lineation and contrapuntal melodies of high and low diction throughout. Archeophonics is a beaming book you’ll feel the need to bask in, not only for its incredibly apt metaphors and urbane internalization of modern-day hullabaloo, but to study just how it is Gizzi collects and directs so much natural light.

––Alexander Moysaenko

***

"Instagrammar"

These lost stars
tomorrow
will they be
there when we
wake in our
sorrow, is it us
so lost in the
moment,
is it today
we look
to flower

If it were
because the time
we saw and
loved, if it was
because we are
and should be
this, the way
it was then, we
find it glowing
this our future
and bravado

We say how
could this be
when did this
happen that
we'll find ourselves
somewhere else
in some future
laughing, why
is it incompatible
I mean what does
it matter, whether
the ship were in
the trees or
the ground was
in the water

The stars doubled
in the river
the stars once
floating in past
futures we ran
to, if it all
seems dizzy
and mayhem
if it all seems
promised and
ordained

Our future is
in the air