Any Time Soon
Little Red Leaves, 2010
Paperback, 36 pages, $8

"In the case of Vietnam, what is a reference" wrote Michael Palmer more than 20 years ago in the context of a different war and different time. In Any Time Soon, Gloria Frym (faculty in Writing and Writing and Literature) writes from the reality that "there is no post war" or external context from which to view our current saturation. Language occurs in the thick of it, taking a "swipe at friendly fire," watching "the poles and their birdhouses." Yet, as in this line, where political obsession twists towards avian respite, Frym's lines torque from exasperation, and critique, to tenderness. Or, to put it another way, she writes "I would like to find money / you didn't know I had / Under my pillow in an unmarked envelope / on a rose marked High Octane Stocks / Can you handle this?"