It’s not like North Carolina is just spontaneously barfing up great poets: many if not most of the Lucipo poets came here from far-flung corners of the country, drawn into the ambit of the area’s universities (Duke and U.N.C., plus U.N.C.-Greensboro, N.C. State, et al.). It’s more of a right-place right-time thing, a fortuitous alignment of stars. Within a half-hour drive from my home in Durham, I’ve got Patrick Herron, Tony Tost, Ken Rumble, Chris Vitiello, Kate Pringle, David Need, Allyssa Wolf, Jon Leon, Joseph Donahue, and too many others to name here. If none of these names mean anything to you, then you’re probably one of the many, many Americans who don’t read modern sub-mainstream poetry. If you recognize them––hell, drop me a line, because I probably know you; it’s a small world.

All of this set-up is just context for the real occasion of this article, a review of three killer books by three Lucipo peeps, all of which were released within the past twelve months and cumulatively made me just blush with NC-pride: Chris Vitiello’s Irresponsibility (Ahsahta Press), Tony Tost’s Complex Sleep (University of Iowa Press), and Ken Rumble’s Key Bridge (Carolina Wren). Note that I’m using the word “review” loosely: I’m stepping out from behind the veil of journalistic objectivity to extol the virtues of three good friends, whom I’m going to refer to by their first names, and about whom I’ve nothing but good things to say. I stand before you gloriously biased; my objectivity gleefully compromised. I’m assuming this will be okay with you, since I imagine you come to Fanzine for a respite from being sold things by allegedly disinterested parties.

All of this community-based, time-and-place stuff is relevant because, although their voices are very distinct, the books emanate from the same living community. They grew up together, from little bobbins sallied forth at readings and meetings to completed manuscripts. They cross-pollinated. These are books that know each other. Two of them are closely bound to worldly times and places, while one has more of an eternally echoing quality; all three of them revel in slippages of mimesis and syntax. And all of them use lapidary language and pyrotechnic erudition as dams to hold back a great flood of yearning and loss. It’s in Chris’s book that these qualities are writ largest, and it’s with Chris’s book we’ll begin.