In Trey Sager’s aptly titled ‘O New York,’ the words flow a little bit too easily, perhaps like traffic in the fair city to which he refers in the title. The book reads like an uninterrupted stream of consciousness but, alas, leaves me begging for an interruption. I wait for a break, in order to be able to turn the page…but on the next one, there is more of the same. As much as I enjoy automatic writing, I also enjoy poetry that creates or recreates a certain imagery, something to make me shake my head, or gasp for breath, or have some sort of emotion. Here words flow and flow but the thoughts never seem to be completed, like conversations half-heard on the subway, and I miss hearing the end of the story. Perhaps it is my failure to hear the narrator’s voice that is to blame, but his poetry left me cold. Lonely. A stranger in Trey Sager’s city. (Andrée Lachapelle)
Poetry Chapbook, Trey Sager, Ugly Duckling Presse, www.uglyducklingpresse.org