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Dear Body by Dan Machlin

(Ugly Duckling Presse, 2007)

L anguage is an inexact method of communication. Once used, words immediately abstract the situation. Dan Machlin places the problem at the center of his first collection of poetry. He addresses his work to the body. Not necessarily a singular entity, or even an existence at all: “Lately I have been feeling estranged from you again. Doubtful/you ever existed” (“Letter 2”).

Machlin acknowledges this creates an unsettling dilemma: “You may find that accepting this inevitable fact about your life will not be easy” (“Letter to D.”). For answers, Machlin looks between relations, physical as well as emotional/psychological. The poems meet up within the distances separating act and thought, memory and present moment: “Around his thought, or a liquid/caress, something altogether contradictory” (“Re:”). The interest is in getting to spaces of discovery in the act of writing, both for writer and reader, where further possibilities are present. The poem as active extension of when and where the writing or reading occurs: “As a dream you took along whose words were playthings/swept the room in lovely waters./A personal one whose hesitation was exhausted” (“Letter Written…”). These are opaque spaces, a rush of images that lead nowhere, yet grab the imagination all the same. The risks involved with living and writing are held to utmost importance: “If this is the year of clarity, it is the year of the priest’s death. I must kill him to become him” (“Letter 1”).

This may feel to be a suite of poems focused upon melancholy: “The darkness, a lovely fugue” (“Letter 2”). Machlin, however, never loses his grip on his subject, his lines float alive in abstraction and the subtle gravity is at times enlivened with occasional humor: “to be alive and dream the/unforgettable houseboats of terrible movies” (“Medium Grey Horses”). Machlin has put in time as an editor and publisher. His first book demonstrates his familiarity and comfort with the often fogged-in world of letters. Thankfully, he doesn’t appear to let too much of it go to his head. He remains, just like the rest of us, dazed and a bit wondering at the project of writing: “A few fragile things each day/for my motley collection/of sayings—” (“Antebodies”). He’ll be reading soon in Buffalo and it will be a generous evening well worth coming out for.

Dan Machlin reads this Friday at Rust Belt Books (202 Allen St.) as part of Just Buffalo’s Small Press Series, along with poet Stephanie Gray. The reading begins at 7pm.