Review: See Me Improving

See Me Improving by Travis Nichols
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Travis Nichols writes “A poem needs a reader—how will I seduce you?” There are moments, lines, images when Nichols nears his goal of seduction. But overall this collection fails. Nichols often writes overweening attempts at a kind of surrealism that simply strain or even approach the inane

One of the title poems tries hard but strains:

Tomorrow in a kindergarten of trees
a carrot will spurt
from a small hole in the ground
and pin the berserk heart
of a rabbit to the sun

“A Poem from Bled” is one of the better attempts.

His poem, “New England,” seems to be Nichols version of Dickinson’s definition of poetry: “If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry." But Nichols version is a bit silly, including such lines as:

When my scalp retreats
to the back of my skull
and my intestine fires flare
Through their tubes, I know
I am beginning....
“Ding Dong!”
I yell...

With some editing and rewriting, there is promise here. I hope future work by Nichols lives up to the title and shows improvement.

View all my reviews