Inviting Blindness

James Deahl is a partner in Mekler & Deahl, Publishers and the author of
Under the Watchful Eye.

Inviting Blindness is Bill Gaston’s first book of poems. Until now,
Gaston has been known as a prose writer, with three novels and two
short-story collections to his credit. Narrative is important in prose
fiction, and Gaston’s poetry is not lacking in narrative elements.
These are particularly well displayed in “Sex by Numbers,” 24
related poems in the middle of the book that tell the story of an erotic
relationship. His fascination with “plot” can be seen in the short,
individual lyrics, too. Gaston has learned much from the confessional
poets while avoiding most of the pitfalls of that type of writing.

Confessional poetry is bloated and overburdened by trivial details. The
poems in Inviting Blindness, by contrast, tend to be spare and focused.
They seek to be more than mere biography in verse. It was Gary Snyder
who observed that in our spiritually impoverished consumer society, sex
takes on an importance far beyond reproduction and erotic pleasure.
Sexual orgasm provides the only epiphany available to people who can
believe in nothing beyond the body. Gaston tries to reverse this
process; he wants to move from the frankly erotic to larger issues of
psychology and spirituality. On occasion he makes this leap and his
poems open out to approach the realm of the dimensionless. Usually,
however, they fall short and circle back into a relationship that cannot
seem to move beyond self-justification.

Almost all the poems presented here are brief, personal, free-verse
lyrics. They read well despite Gaston’s rather pedestrian imagery. The
collection also includes three prose-poems and an extended ghazal. These
more formally constrained pieces are less successful and show, perhaps,
how difficult it is to rise above the mundane in our too-material
culture.