America and Other Poems

Don Precosky teaches English at the College of New Caledonia and is the
co-editor of Four Realities: Poets of Northern B.C.

If the title of this collection makes you think of the late American
poet Alan Ginsberg, then you already have a sense of what these poems
are like. Several of Bien’s poems, including in particular his title
poem “America,” do more than merely imitate Ginsberg’s writings;
they also follow his style in writing about recent historical world
events. Bien includes poems about the fall of the Berlin Wall and the
dissolution of the Soviet Union; they also continue Ginsberg’s
complaint that despite America’s “victory” over communism, it is
not the perfect place its promoters claim it to be.

Bien’s perfect mimic’s ear captures the freewheeling declamatory
style of the early Ginsberg extremely well. One might ask why a Canadian
poet is so urgent about speaking to and even reforming the nation to the
south. Perhaps the answer lies in his “Goodbye to Kemptville,” an
imaginary adieu to the small town; in this poem Bien chronicles the
mixed blessings of growing up in a small Canadian town—its safety and
its boredom. America represents a seductive escape to a place that is
both glamorous and dangerous where the big issues are played out and the
big decisions are made.