Elizabeth Willis, Address

SONNET

To never say “I am solved

by this shadow”

I panic the way

evening petals

the wooded cheek

I am not bored

On this hidden fence

I erase everything

Caught in the mouth

of the dog next door:

the spreading heat

of urban violet

dying in the car

None of this is free

In Address (Middletown CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2011), American poet, critic and editor Elizabeth Willis’ fifth trade poetry collection, what becomes worth remarking on is her remarkable clarity, her clear purpose. The poems that make up Address compact the form, allowing only their finest moments. Over the past few years, I’ve been intrigued by those poets working more overtly with politics, writing a content of crisis, complain, exploration and action, from Juliana Spahr, Stephen Brockwell, Brenda Hillman, Jeff Derksen and now Willis as well, in poems such as “THE WITCH,” “BLACKLIST” and “THIS IS NOT A POEM / ABOUT KATHERINE HARRIS / (R-13^th District Florida),” that includes:

When I announced my support

for the “Stop Sex Trafficking” Act

I dressed as tastefully as I could

without compromising my syndicated

cleavage. When I announced

my support for this Act, I was not

denouncing sexual acts per se,

even when performed for political

advantage. When I denounced

my support for sex trafficking,

I was flanked by a Republican

from Ohio with whom I was

not having sex and a Democrat

from New York, whose assets

I had eyed only briefly.

What kind of act was this?

What I like about this collection is the quick wit and the simple movement. What I like about this collection is in how Willis uses "address" both as rousing speech and a geographic locale, pinpointing a subtle bullet-hole wake-up to action for all around her to hear, and hopefully listen to, whether through the breathtaking final lines of her poem “NOCTURNE,” or the final couplet of “FRIDAY,” that reads:

Your footprint on the planet

pinned down by outer space