In “Landscape with Peephole” and “Atmosphere,” Elizabeth Breese channels the wised-up spirit of another era’s naïf. The sensibility of the poems is hard to tack down—at times goofy, at times wry, balancing the sharp turns of dialectical thinking with ordinary fuzz. The poems veer between versions of their subjects, changing channels and locations with the slippery clarity of a dream. Atmosphere is by turns the zeitgeist, polluted air, nostalgia, and the weather; it was so all along. Her poems are comparison machines that allow different lenses to overlap—which is another way to explain all the puns, the sliding between tones that becomes vertigo in retrospect. Every space is on top of another space, everything’s a bud, your coat is from the 80s. Are there cows there? – The Editors and Poetry Staff
Landscape with Peephole
Lens is everything, which is one way of saying
that’s just one way of looking at it,
which is one way of saying let’s not be reductive
about such and such. With a few notable exceptions,
nothing is absolute. Nothing is notable.
Another way of looking at landscape is through the people
who arrived thinking it looked like someplace else.
Vaguely Holstein. Berlinish. Rhineland-lite.
Comparison is binocular, while contrast
is monocular and involves moving the head.
Did they say these forests or this forest, that?
Atmosphere
Mustard is a hot color. Not hot mustard.
Both are a matter of taste, bud,
but in two years one will feel nostalgic and strange;
the other will be a condiment.
With the news cycling out of control,
we might have just one year
before the acidic shade seemed like a good idea
at the time. Over to you.
The fashion forecast for today
is for real clothes that make us feel safe.
The high pressure system of seduction
loses out to the desire to be left alone, to seek
shelter. Layers are front and center.
Jackets are hot. Parkas are hot.
The American West is on fire.
Capes are easy chic par excellence.
The 60s are back, but it will feel like the 50s.
The top half of the 80s is back,
but it will feel like the 50s.
It feels strange out, bud, so bundle up.