Image Poems From the Hallway of the Endicott Building

by Norman J. Olson. Beaver Lake Press, 946 N. McKnight Rd. Maplewood, MN. 55119-3635.

Book Review by Michael Basinski

These are a handful of poems that will ring with absolute truth the reality of anyone who has worked for any length of time in any form of bureaucracy. Olson’s observations are so clear in their exaggerated metaphoric complex that the world which spawned them is altered and the new, fierce and bizarre reality of Olson’s poems replaces the dumb lust driven, pathetic, dismal and dull and meaningless existence of middle class office life. He writes with starkly sticking imagistic word strings. In his old office building are vampires and lobsters, wobbly chairs, stained ties and diet soda and time is measured by the shake of the asses of women who walk by. But why should I try to explain using Norman’s language, here is a sample:

Silent angels masturbate
and grin
and
an old man in
a worn brown jacket sits at a
salmon colored Formica table and sips diet soda
through a red-striped star. Imaginary
ants crawl toward the ceiling. His eyeballs roll
acorss the floor,
looking for
dancing lobsters.