When you pick up Michael Eden Reynolds’ first collection of poetry, Slant Room, it is as if he is handing you a pair of binoculars. As soon as you have finished focusing on the constellations far above, he gets you to flip the binoculars around so you are looking down the wrong end.
Binoculars, of course, work both ways. One way, they make us feel as if we can reach out and touch the roof of our galaxy. The other way, they act as a magnifying glass, enabling us to look at what we think we already know in sometimes uneasy detail. Reynolds plays with our perspective right from the start of his collection in Spring Night in Caledon, where we begin with our attention focused on a vegetable and end with that vast galaxy view. In between, he sticks our noses in dung and rotting garbage and makes our eyes water along with his own.
A lot of people have been waiting for Slant Room, and while it is a cliché to say it, they will not be disappointed. A poet who wins not only first but also second prize in the same competition, namely the 2009 PRISM international poetry contest, needs to be paid attention to as closely as binoculars will allow.
A full version of this review was published in the fall 2009 edition of The Northern Review.
