Buck Downs, NICE NOSE

 

FIVE SECOND RULE

all the dirt in my house
is created by me
or by the creatures
who feed on me

so I feel safe
eating any food
that hits the floor

The latest from Washington DC poet Buck Downs is the self-published NICE NOSE (2023), following on the heels of his chapbook-length GREEDY MAN: selected poems (Brooklyn NY: Subpress Collective/CCCP Chapbooks, 2023) [see my review of such here], OPEN CONTAINER (Washington DC: privately printed, 2019) [see my review of such here] and Unintended Empire: 1989-2012 (Baltimore MD: Furniture Press, 2018) [see my review of such here], among multiple other titles. Downs’ has long been an observational, thinking lyric that veers into surrealism, but there’s been an interesting shift over the past couple of years, as he’s moved into shorter forms for the sake of posting poems to Instagram (find him at @thesomethingfornothing), and subsequently, as stickers distributed around his home city of Washington. The scope of his poems remain, but with further density; more punch than meander, although that element isn’t removed entirely. The development of an increased density and brevity in his poems for the sake of a publishing form is curious, and comparable to family doctor and poet William Carlos Williams, who wrote poems that ran down the page but with short lines due to composing first drafts on prescription pads. Downs’ surreal meditations and skewed humour, social commentary and quirky observations, “Passive-aggressive pro-mask propaganda, dusty riddles” and other elements remain from what he’s previously published, but with a fascinating pared-down lyric compared to prior work. This is a fantastic book that requires repeated reading; there is much packed into the quick quirks of his lines, more than you might even imagine.

FAMOUS LAST WORDS

come on
what have
you got
to lose