22 years of wendy shaffer life

Lady just asked me to read the proof copy of the soon to be released

22 Years by Wendy Shaffer
Selected Poems 1988 – 2010
(88 poems, 200 pages, published by The City Poetry press)

It is a a superb collection. This is the second time I’ve proof-read 22 Years and the second time I’ve been awed. Wendy’s the best living poet I know and this is the best book of poetry I’ve read; it abounds in lines like

and the wasps sing about love / to all the empty bottles of champagne

&

your voice can be soft / as my thighs / or hollow and hard / as a cheap plywood door

&

but now your car’s stalled in the middle of the bridge / and you’ve forgotten which side is home

&

but he serves me / human / just a cow with an evil brain

I’ll leave you with a whole poem:

god & the cleaning lady

everyone needs god & a cleaning lady
in their life
not to mention
an iguana to come home to
a box of candy-coated rules
and some ocean in a bottle
life under any other conditions
just wouldn’t be right
life is more than one toilet
that flushes
more than an angry place to sleep
sometimes you can find god
in cleaning ladies
sometimes you need a prescription
for quiet water
feeding local rocks
sometimes the bottle is empty
and the iguana is sick
sometimes you can only trust
the night
and wrap yourself deep in its mink arms
waiting to be born

– by Wendy Shaffer

Disclosure – Wendy has been in 4 issues of ArtCrimes, she gave us our loaner cat Mandy, and we’ve known her for years. But even so, I wouldn’t say nice things about her if they weren’t true, unless she paid me a lot of cash money (which she doesn’t have – so buy this book when it comes out so she can pay me for my nice words).