"The Last Usable Hour" by Deborah Landau (published 2011)
In a world of scrolling, where I am constantly reading more of the same, unimpressive, kind but not potent, charming but not soulful stuff, stuck amidst the Lang Leavs, Rupi Kaurs, and Nayyirah Waheeds (sorry, not sorry, in my humble opinion only)... Deborah Landau's small book of poetry, "The Last Usable Hour" struck a resonant, harmonious chord with me. There's not too much to *see* in this book. Her poems are textured emotionally and are sparsely descriptive. Sometimes she seems to be talking to herself ("What the hell do you think you're doing?), at just the tip of a certain kind of madness. She remembers little things people say, just a line or two, or how they seemed ("Across the table his mind right there... behind his talking face") she thinks things to herself that conflict with what is actually happening, she's distracted yet not, sometimes stuck in trains of thought, and always drawn in by desire. What is this desire? It's not...