Denmark, Kangaroo, Orange. By Kevin Griffith. Long Beach, CA: Pearl Editions, 2008. $14.95 (pa.)

The title poem of Denmark, Kangaroo, Orange describes a mind reading trick, the result of which will lead 98% of readers to the same three items that make up the title. Griffith is, of course, not blessed with magical powers, so how does he know that most of us will pick these same three items? With this demonstration, Griffith is getting at something in the similar natures of people (and writing). Likewise, even in the strangest premises of poems we see universalities.

The first section of the book deals with "work" which, for Griffith, is the teaching of writing. This is, by far, the most inspired section. Several of these poems made me laugh out loud. The opening poem of this section is "Your Pants Look Disappointed," in which Griffith sets the tone for much of the collection. The narrator's young son has stated the titular line, and the narrator expounds on it: "But isn't it always tedious, this life?" he asks. There is a tragic undertone, dealing with the humilities of the working life, but it doesn't take itself too seriously. "Even three-year-old children know what they are getting into—this life, with its empty tuna can for each day of the week, its gray bathtubs. Why doesn't anyone make good bathtubs anymore, the kind with brass feet, impossible to move?" Griffith isn't whining about having to work for a living; he's talking about quality of life. As in the poem, "Optimism," where he makes the rallying cry, "I have not wasted my life. Not yet." Griffith is describing the considered life, and it is this consideration that saves him.

In "Furnace," a furnace repairman has become trapped in a family's furnace: "And because of the war, a war that never seems to end, I might add, the authorities are too busy to rescue him." Outside, in the "world" there is war, as there often seems to be, but inside the family deals with a more specific problem. But absurd as it is, everyone makes peace with the situation as well as they can: "Somehow he has positioned himself so that his face looks up through the iron grate of the main intake vent under our couch. Sometimes we slide the couch forward and let the children drop crackers and sliced apples into his open mouth." There is a wry humor to many of these poems.

In "The Village of Bitterness" Griffith describes a landscape populated by wasted lives: "When the villagers wake and find themselves dead, they are relieved." It reminds me of Kurt Vonnegut's assertion that people don't really like life, that's why we're so unhappy. "They can now spend their time on something more useful than prayer" Griffith goes on to say. These people have missed the point. They blame everything and everyone outside of themselves, but of course, they are to blame for their present conditions.

-CL Bledsoe