Second Sight

Jonathan Aaron

Of the books presented in the 1982 National Poetry Series, the only poet who has since emerged as a real force is Naomi Shihab Nye. Which is quite a shame, because Jonathan Aaron, whose debut effort this was, is truly one of the more gifted poets to emerge in post-WW2 America. As one should expect from the cover of Second Sight (Giacometti's sculpture “Dog”), Aaron's work is whip-crack surrealism laced with a jaded eye and a sharp wit:

“…the days
turned into years at a speed suggested
only by the thin, metallic whine
I could sometimes hear
when the phone went dead: a foul-up
in the circuitry, or
the sonic afterglow
of the spoken word. Meanwhile,
her lapses of memory and taste grew beyond
my simple faith in the facts.”
(“Second Sight”)

Aaron does have a few rough edges in his poetry; some of the pieces in the book (especially at the very beginning, and a few towards the end) are less than inspiring, and as should be obvious from the piece quoted above there are some line break problems (“or” is one of those words which should never, ever end a line of poetry. Ever.), but this is a fantastic debut from a poet of great promise. Unfortunately, the twenty years since have seen only one more collection, Corridor, emerge (a third has been mentioned since 1999 in various bios, but has yet to see the light of day as of this writing). Aaron is worth far more acclaim than he has so far received.