Seth Landman, Confidence

Walk in the shade

and feel like that

part of morning

Missouri River

stream licked

by the light

of last night so what do you think

what else could these places have been

in earlier times

I’m not afraid

I never had

a sense of the moment

my face

looking at other faces

someone is dying

and when someone is dying

you understand

everyone dies

but this one person

is overwhelming

a minute the fabric takes

and I go on

feeling mediocre

most of the day is stupid

most of my

mood is sour

just now I felt

like I could (“Confidence”)

The three poems that make up American poet Seth Landman’s second full-length collection, Confidence (Brooklyn NY: Brooklyn Arts Press, 2015), are constructed as extended sequences of short fragments that allow each poem to slowly build through accumulation. The poems—“Telling You I Love You,” “Confidence” and “Breakwater”—have less a sense of obvious narrative trajectory than a sense of openings, hesitations, pauses, observations and insights, bound together as a series of lengthy, serious breaths. There is a great deal going on in these simple statements and short phrase-lines—“I love some words / they have sadness baked right in / in the moment / I can’t find better ones” (“Telling You I Love You”)—and in many ways, the three poems collected here give the sense of being deeply interconnected, nearly as three sections of a single, book-length poem. Following on the heels of his first collection, Sign You Were Mistaken (Factory Hollow Press, 2013), Confidence shows very much what the title suggests: a confidence and a vulnerability, as Landman explores without needing to prove, opening to a variety of threads and possibilities, allowing the language to propel like water; to ebb and flow naturally, clearly and thoughtfully. Just when you think there might be nothing going on, the poem coheres, and sparkles with purpose.

All things that happen request you

make a call

out of whatever

mind is remaining

it’s raining

it’s making me think

deft wind

what surprises

my body just keeps breathing

should I bring

pizza and beer

seeing as this is now

the most important thing

action taken

without much thought

I hardly know you

but I want your shoulder

what is meant by control nothing

important the most

important thing (“Confidence”)