Woman Police Officer in Elevator: Poems Book

James Lasdun coedited the After Ovid anthology-- in which contemporary poets put their personal spins on various passages from Ovid's Metamorphoses--so it's no surprise that his own poetry displays an Ovidean penchant for lightning-like transformation. Sometimes these metamorphoses are literal. In "Oxblood," for example, an ancient King Charles oak sickens, nearly dies, and finally undergoes a miraculous resurrection: "and like the stick / That blossomed when it stirred Medea's potion, / The tree burst into leaf again so thick / Its namesake could have hidden in its crown." Elsewhere, Lasdun pays heed to more fanciful quick-change acts. Take the policewoman he encounters in an elevator, who evokes that supposedly arousing Rebus of pain and desire, the uniformed woman, Whether as Dietrich in epaulettes, Or armored like Penthesileia, or in thigh boots And cocked hat, straddling the Atlantic, Fishing for campesinos With live torpedoes... With its rapid shifts in diction, casual wit, and intermingling of classics and camp (not to mention campesinos), the latter passage showcases at least a few of Lasdun's poetic strengths. But it takes a deeper immersion in Woman Police Officer in Elevator to get a sense of his linguistic agility and shape-shifting intelligence.Read More