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Rating:  - My Bible
I refer to this book whenever I feel low, or seek inspiration, or just wish to bring some meaning into a numbingly humdrum day. I keep it on the back of the toilet so it will always be within easy reach. I have felt much more compassion for toilets since reading Edson's poem about a toilet sliding into a room like a snail, begging to be loved. (When it is denied, it slides back out, flushing with grief.)
My favorite is The Family Monkey. ("We bought an electric monkey, experimenting rather recklessly with funds carefully gathered since grandfather's time for the purchase of a steam monkey.")
Dip into this when you desire to be shaken free of the rut in which you find yourself. Unless of course, your rut is eccentric prose poetry, in which case, praise your hat and pass the ape!
Rating: - An accomplished master of prose poetry
Russell Edson is an accomplished master of prose poetry. Each of his poems are complete presentations of his uniquely expressed verse that has earned him the respect of his peers, academia, and readers. "The Tunnel: Selected Poems" draws from the poet's own chosen favorites among the seven previously published collections of his work and will aptly serve to introduce his originality and expertise to a whole new generation of appreciative readers. 'The Large Thing': A large thing comes in./Go out, Large Thing, says someone./The Large Thing goes out, and comes in again./Go out, Large Thing, and stay out, says someone./The large Thing goes out, and stays out./Then that same someone who has been ordering the Large Thing out/begins to be lonely, and says, come in Large Thing./But when the Large Thing is in, that same someone decides it would be/better if the Large Thing would go out./Go out, Large Thing, says this same someone./The Large Thing goes out./Oh, why did I say that? Says the someone, who begins to be lonely again./But meanwhile the Large Thing has come back in anyway./Good, I was just about to call you back, says the same someone to the Large Thing.
Rating: - Suicide Prevention Poetry
Suicide hotline operators should simply read from Edson. This is life affirming stuff. I insist you also get his new one, The Tormented Mirror, and anything by James Tate, especially Shroud of the Gnome. These two will startle even the most steadfast poetry-haters.
Rating: - Great fun, and sometimes profound
Don't let yourself get all tangled in the arguments over what is and isn't a prose poem, or even if such an oxymoronic creature is possible. It doesn't matter what you call them, these things by Russell Edson are great fun and great reading.
Most of these pieces are about a page long, and many are considerably shorter. They are moments of dreams, newsreels from some surreal purgatory, portraits of impossibility. In this world, "Mr Is went into the woods to think about his wooden head," and "A woman had given birth to an old man." Within the oddity and amidst the strangeness are moments of tenderness, passion, horror. Read slowly and carefully, these words somehow seem to reflect the world we trudge through and the life we lead, and so add contours to our boring reality. There is a lot of melancholy here; it comes perhaps from the confusions and juxtapositions, but there is nothing to fear, and plenty to love, for, as Edson writes, "In such a world there is much sadness which, of course, is joy..."
Rating: - Broadly accessible prose poems, rewarding, and unique.
I read this book with a poetry reading book club and it was one of the club's favorites. Edson writes often surreal philosophical fables which are easy to enter into because of their familiar, "There once was a woman who..." language. However, this river runs deep.
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