Book: Fossil Sky
Written by David Hinton (Archipelago Books)
Reviewed by Erick Mertz

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Rather than open from a spine, with a sequence of numbered pages like conventional books of poems, Fossil Sky unfolds like the travel map you purchase at a gas station then twists and turns its words like a black and white trail all around the page. The only image contained in the "book" is that of a single hawk, wings outspread, which emblazons the small binding that holds it together. It is a stiff, rigid representation; perhaps it is the fossil to which the title is referring. Other than this small hawk, poet Davis Hinton's work is conceived of a stark landscape with no color and winding trails going nowhere.

There isn't much to Fossil Sky beyond the enigma evoked in the innovative design. Its poem may be the expressive work of natural verse that it suggests, but reading Hinton's work in this form is extremely laborious. The page opens in full to a size larger than a queen bed and then is too washed in white paper, and as a result the middle is easily lost. The words look like ant trails, making it difficult to look at: the poem's beginning is as elusive as the end and middle.

The intent of Hinton and Archipelago's design staff seems clear, but it is a long way to go for what ends up as truly diminished results. It has a geographic goal, but what ends up drawn on Fossil Sky is an elaborate Bermuda Triangle of almost meaningless poetry.

© 2004 - Erick Mertz