Small Rectangular Reflected World
“When has love ever known / how to follow a map or behave?” J. D. Scrimgeour asks in this riveting collection, which journeys near and far—to the local thrift store, Red Sox game, and neighborhood as well as to Langston Hughes’ Harlem, Chinese dissidents laboring in coal mines, and Thoreau petting fish in the Concord River. True to the book’s title, these poems offer small rectangular reflections of the world, enabling us to see beyond superficies as we strive to understand and repair some of what we find broken. In the concluding tour de force, “Words, Days, Flames,” Scrimgeour riffs from Virgil’s Aeneidto examine how we might maintain our humanity in the late days of empire. This is a timely, highly crafted book from a poet tender in his terror and brave in his clear sight.
- Heather Treseler, author of Auguries & Divinations, Hard Bargain, and Parturition
In his latest poetry collection, Small, Rectangular, Reflected World, J.D. Scrimgeour—Salem, MA’s first poet laureate—navigates the spaces between family, memory, culture, and place. From Salem to New York to Nanjing, these poems grapple with loss, and search for meaning in a fractured world. With a plainspoken grace, he crosses the borders between grief and gratitude, drawing on such literary figures as Henry David Thoreau to Langston Hughes, and closing with a masterful meditation on 9/11. As “…every day erases the one before,” Scrimgeour reminds us that even in uncertain times, there’s “a sliver of joy” waiting to be found.
January Gill O’Neil, Author of Glitter Road
Before his son can speak he already knows that the ice cream Toad is rushing to give Frog will fall off the cone; a Chinese student with big dreams will squelch them, refusing to lie; and, as 9/11 proves, history doesn’t repeat, it’s our eternal, grim, tragic, living world. Typically, our poet here is “so full of not-knowing” [he] can hardly stand” and yet he always unflinchingly mirrors things in a way that links small stories to their vast contexts. Scrimgeour’s new book is absorbing to read, and instructive to reread. Once again he shows himself to be a fresh and original writer of stalwart courage with very, very sharp eyes.
Alan Feldman, Author of The Golden Coin