The End of the Alphabet

December 1, 1998
This second collection from the Jamaican-born Rankine marks a decided aesthetic departure from her first (Nothing in Nature Is Private, Cleveland State Univ., 1995), which was a candid, lyrical exploration of emotionally charged boundaries. Alphabet is an extended monolog composed in 12 sets of poetic sequences whose liquid and shifting arrangements owe more to Objectivist and Language Poetry schools--and to the free association of psychoanalysis--than to writing workshop conventions. In highly metaphorical yet abstract language, the poems trace a quest "to locate the self salvaged," but any such goal risks solipsism, something Rankine manages to sidestep (as in "Testimonial") only when she directs her attention to the physical world. Otherwise, "the striving after," as harrowing and hallucinogenic as it can sometimes be, is diluted by a disembodied, blurry impressionism. Certainly Rankine's is a singular voice, and though her journey into the interior is fraught with indirection, one must admire the risks she takes.--Fred Muratori, Cornell Univ. Lib., Ithaca, NY