Sleepers Awake

Hazzard (Progress: Real and Imagined) explores modern mayhem through winding poems full of pithy wordplay in his energetic third collection. Woven throughout are lyrical vignettes that appreciate life’s quiet moments. With wry gusto, he alludes to the distracted, divided self: “Knowing you’re being duped// Kind of enjoying it// Watching the image of the plane you’re on// Humming during sex// Shaving while eating// Writing while hovering.” Throughout, Hazzard captures exercises in futility (“Cooling hot milk/ in an ice bath/ today’s screaming./ Roaming the ratios/ like a diorama/ rubbernecking vernacular”) and presents the lure of the technological future as a psychological crutch: “A sweet retreat from the responsibility/ Of being a person, separate/ From sensation’s confetti, life/ Fluttering on the screengrab surface?” He also explores what deconstruction yields: “Gold is formed during the death of a star.// There you are.// One poem, but inside it/ hundreds of smaller poems// each with an agenda of its own// pupae in the rotten bark.” In another reflection on the poetic medium, he playfully takes aim at literary pretension: “White glove// flouting the form// twatting a thrush/ straight out the sky.” Though at times enigmatic, Hazzard’s avant-garde confessional invites readers into an impressive, kinetic cinema of organized chaos. (Feb.)