Cool Auditor

by Ray Gonzalez

Overview

Cool Auditor features Ray Gonzalez's particular brand of magical realism. His vision of the natural world, human relationships, and the difficulties of language reveals itself in memorable and surprising ways in every poem. Loose and circumfluent, this collection of prose poems employs rich imagery and repetition of phrase and sound to create a seemingly-effortless incantatory power. Humor also plays a large role in these prose poems. His rollicking poem “Affordable Aphorisms” features many bright, humorous insights, including “If you had a normal childhood, your biographers will label it The Age of Reason.” and “To exile yourself in writing is to wear the wrong deodorant for years.” However, this levity is always counter-balanced by his deep empathy with his subjects, with animals, humans, and their surroundings. Ray Gonzalez's poetry reminds us that the mysteries of the everyday may not be solved, but through the careful use of syllable and silence they might reveal, if only momentarily, their totemic power. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781934414293
Publisher:	BOA Editions, Ltd.
Publication date:	11/01/2009
Series:	American Poets Continuum , #120
Edition description:	1st
Pages:	104
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Ray Gonzalez has authored numerous books of poetry, non-fiction, and fiction, and edited twelve anthologies. He is poetry editor for The Bloomsbury Review, and founding editor of the poetry journal Luna. He is a full professor in the MFA Creative Writing Program at The Universityof Minnesota in Minneapolis.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly; El Paso Times; Small Press Review; La Bloga.

From the Publisher

In his 10th book, renowned prose poet Gonzalez proclaims he is at “the crossroads in [his] throat” where he “looks both ways.” Gonzalez is as quirky as ever, matching the didactic tone and jargon of a scientist with the sensibilities of artists like Kenneth Rexroth, Hart Crane and Picasso, among others, who walk in and out of the poems. Juxtaposition of unlike images is Gonzalez's m.o., making for sometimes lucid, sometimes abrasive intersections. In one poem, for instance, we learn of “Jesus still waiting to unplug his phone charger.” Yet Gonzalez's eccentric mashups are often quite convincing and powerful: “the devil is but an imagined source of fire where the ones who believe are transformed into praying objects.” When Gonzalez falls flat, these pieces read like odd short stories, and at times similar sentence structure makes them predictable. Yet many readers may find themselves awed to see “All things pray in the silence madness brings.” (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly