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The Physicist at the Mall »
Reviews and Comments
"The basic agent of surprise is
the poet's imagination: Does it engage the world in a
fresh way? With Holmes, the answer is an emphatic yes.
She excels at poems of 'remarkable dailiness,' as
she calls it—that is, at poems that see ordinary
things in extraordinary ways. . . .
"Finally, what really lifts Holmes to another level as
a poet is her realization that 'reality is not limited
to the tactile,' that there is something inexplicable
about this world she pays such careful attention to.
'You want a miracle that knows its place,' she says,
and her poetry is a kind of thaumaturgy, each poem the
discovery and presentation of 'The Miracle as I See
It,' to quote the final poem's title. This
apprehension of the miraculous beneath the mundane can
transform even the rankest reality: 'A dog, unwelcome
now at his owner's house,/ wanders with skunk spray
matted deep in his fur, a four-footed censer/ blessing
my yard, my neighbors, the road, the brightening
valley.' That beatific image is one of many edifying
surprises in The Physicist at the Mall. I look
forward to more of the miracles as Janet Holmes sees
them."
—Michael McFee, Duke Magazine, November-December 1994
Read poems from The Physicist at
the Mall:
"The
Love of the Flesh"
"The
Pattern"
