Changing Appearance, by Toby Olson. 5" x 8"; 136 pp; perfect bound. Cover
based on a photo by Giovanni Orlando.1975.
Toby Olson is a complete poet - one of the best writing in the USA today. Everything works together in his poems - the thoughts, the sounds of the words, the images aroused by them, & all the little silences (how well he disposes them!): the caesurae, the line endings, the strophe breaks. They make it plain that verse is a reality - not merely a typographic convention. He is always saying something worth hearing & making it a pleasure for us to hear him say it. His poems are direct and artful. Like the women in his laundromat poem, "They talk straight at me."
Click here to go to an essay on Toby Olson's books