Domestic Economy

Chris Faiers, winner of the 1987 Milton Acorn People’s Poetry Award,
is author of Foot Through the Ceiling.

This is a quirky book. Many of the poems detail small, personal
journeys, like a trip to the beach, or everyday happenings, like
clearing your answering machine. Donlan philosophizes through these
mundane frameworks, employing startling and often bizarre images.
Sometimes these intertwinings work, and sometimes they read like Emily
Dickinson on bad acid.

Each consists of four quatrains, a traditional and necessarily economic
form. As readers may expect, some poems yearn to sprawl beyond their
allotted 16 lines, whereas a few could use pruning. Overall, though, the
quatrain form suits Donlan’s purposes.

Donlan is erudite and whimsical, a poet of small and confined passions
and insights—perhaps the perfect poet for librarians. Most readers
won’t be challenged, angered, or enlightened, but many will be amused
to find mirrored familiar places of their own lives.

My favorite poem, “Handsome Is,” is about falling through ice. The
poem ends, “Your eyes go wide / and I love to see them like that,
disciplined / taking me in, not missing anything.” I wish more of the
poems had been inspired by this kind of existential terror.