What has Touched Down Has Removed Me Instead: David Tomaloff Captures the Essence, Ghosts and the Liquidity of Image Language in His New Chap Book of Poetry

A review by DAMM

Rarely in my lifetime have I been so excited to write about someone else’s poetry. There in fact has been only two occasions before this where I found it necessary to do so – My review of The Hurricane Lamp by my favorite poet of all time Sundin Richards and when my other favorite Edgar Allan Poe moved me to pen a 45 page analysis of his work back when I was a far younger man. There is yet another to mention, Richard Cronshey who’s The Snow and the Snow I wish to write about but cannot quite invent the words for those words because so much of its fantasticness is beyond my ability to say anything when in the presence of those words.

Today there is another. Today I must write about my first eXperience with a large dose of David Tomaloff.

In his chap book “A Soft That Touches Down & Removes itself” Tomaloff kicks the walls of notion and preconception to the ground. In the unrecognizable rubble that is left in your mind he surgically constructs vivid new images and passionately leads the reader to their own delights. The heart on the cover is so appropriate for this collection of poems because it beats unwaveringly through every page. I was committed, I was involved. I read it four or five time and am still smiling.

This is a testament to relationship, and a shining monument to the dialogue between a he and a she. A mechanical pulse

But I am disturbed by what my mind can do. The new associations and fresh imagery make this one of the finest modern poetry collections I have ever read. I read and have read a ton of poetry. I am impressed. See the following excerpt from a poem called “These Are A Ritual”

The dirges were all villages;

we melted them into lead

we burned them all down

I said to make way for the “us”

It is these kinds of succinct abstractions that filter the meaning down like a warm drop of salt air or the icy finger of a bitter old man depending on the poem. This book is chalked full of meaning. Go up click on the link, buy this book right away. You will be a better human being for having read this book about the machine of the beating heart.

August 28, 2011 | Categories: DAMM, Poetry, Reviews | Tags: 19th Century, American, art, Edgar Allan Poe, Literature, Online Writing, poetry, World Literature | Leave a comment