Scented Rushes

Poetry. Is poetry alive? It is part of the human body and seems to look like the human mind. But it is almost never as lively, voluptuous, dancing as these poems of Nada Gordon. She seems to be using her own dictionary and idiolect and innocence. Her work is a cadenza ad lib and seems unflawed as a Bollywood movie unfolds with increasing intensity. This is some of the freshest work of her generation: she helps create the new comedy, where jokes are not needed to be happy. She has what a painter once told me was absolutely necessary: shamelessness. This is like rock and roll from another planet for another time–David Shapiro.