December 3, Mark Allen Everett Poetry Series


Shin Yu Pai must have felt constrained by the circumstances of her reading here last week.

She seemed demur and reserved. I appreciate her explanations, giving insight into the inspiration for the poems, so that she could read series without explicated each individual poem.

The poems she read are all very interior, as if they exist within the walls of a museum—a world in which she is comfortable and in control. I understand that the Buddha world is also very interior. Still, my experience is that one is engulfed in void more than one “steps into the void.” The enclosed space of the poems gives a claustrophobic feel to her work. I was wanting her to hang a window on one of her walls—Billy Collins Monday ( http://lizmuir.blogspot.com/2008/04/poets-are-at-their-windows.html ).

I was surprised when I received the copy of Sightings: Selected Works 2000-2005 which I ordered. Her book is very different from her presentation. From the die-cut cover to the exploded text of her poems, her training as a graphic artist gives these poems great vitality.

While I enjoyed her reading, her book is even better.