Chemical Tendencies

Poetry. Paul Lieber's hot, hip, exhilarating poems whirl like small tornadic stories or conversations withpeople from the poet's life--his son, father, friends--all torqued up with the tough-love of gentletough-talk, as well as lucid observation. Reading these poems I often felt I was watching short films in black and white, full of quick cuts--immediate, intense--where a 'Bulky gray 49 Ford / with running boards' might deliver a father in 'a brimmed hat, / saying groovy and hep / with the thick sound / of an outsider.' More than once I thought of John Cassavetes. Witty, colloquial, taciturn, and deeply human, I found the poems in CHEMICAL TENDENCIES endlessly entertaining, and constantly surprising, even slightly shocking. In the end this is one of the best collections of love poems I've sat down with in a long time, poems that carry us toward acceptance and grace like a sock to the jaw--David Dodd Lee.