a micro review by Jennifer van Alstyne
Texture Notes Sawako Nakayasu Letter Machine Editions (2010) $14
Texture Notes by Sawako Nakayasu was published in 2010 by small press, Letter Machine Editions. It is Nakayasu’s 4th book of poetry (most recently Hurry Home Honey, Burning Deck, 2009) and mimicks the form of both diary and prose poetry. Each prose poem is entitled after a date ranging from May of 2003 to September of 2004. The book uses both command and manual-style to invoke the reader’s thought process into a world of dreamscape and memory. For instance, “7.9.2003” catalogs “ant-sized objects, in the order received,” with everything from “microchip” to the “hour hand of my watch.” It lists both the absurd (“the pinky nail of a 5-month-old baby”) to the mundane (“the back to an earring”). But, what Nakayasu really invokes are instances of deep observation, whether it be of a dream, a vision, or an ethical play on human nature. Andre Crodescu once said that the poet’s most useful tool is observation: the ability to overhear, people-watch, and the subsequent creation of images and stories for each of these observations. Nakayasu takes these sightings and spins into them a fantastical “field of umbrellas.”
