Here's to the Future

Ronald Charles Epstein is a Toronto-based freelance writer and published poet.

A self-styled “man of the people” explores love in a collection that
is uninspired, forgettable, and sometimes absurd. In “Love Felled,”
the narrator addresses his lover as “you the Madonna in whose estrogen
/ I sail,” expressing sentiments worthy of Prince Charles’s taped
conversations with Camilla. The fantasy verse “The Magic Carp”
abuses poetic licence with such lines as “Your magic carp / finned an
isotope through the / cesspool and bit my / bare ass rubbing yours.”

This clumsy Cupid also observes ordinary life. “Obsolete” warns
“trendies,” “Don’t ever change your mind / People, fashions come
and go.” In “Martians,”’ the passage “Old Medea / who kills
her children / aborts new life” may be a pro-life jibe. Otherwise,
Summers offers no new insights. His book’s most memorable feature is
its unintentional humor.