Anaphora

Kevin Goodan’s work is always quiet and meditative creating a kind American metaphysical poetry. His latest collection, Anaphora, takes its name from a rhetorical device where phrases are repeated at the beginning of lines creating a ritualistic effect. However, Goodan doesn’t simply deploy the literary device but embeds in his poems recurrences of not just word but of thought and deed.

The poems of Anaphora are eulogistic, to be sure, but nearly every poem yanks the reader into them patiently and almost imperceptibly saying “we.” This allows the poems to exist in two spaces—the narrative fact of their surface where Goodan is using the poems to relate to us specific loss and the existential truth packed within.

Fortunately, these short and distilled lyrics allow readers to ponder what they encounter at their own pace. When he writes “these are the call-signs/the translations of here/the common flame swaying/for the beginning we are/calling to November I am/violence the bright book/says chromatic like Jimmy/like Joe Grady shot dead/here the drop-zone” readers have already gathered pieces and know they are experiencing something deeply personal and objectively true. Goodan’s verse implicates readers igniting in them a deep connection making //Anaphora// an exceptional collection of poetry.