Review of Present Tense Poetry, by John Yamrus

Present Tense Poetry
John Yamrus

Review by
Julie Carpenter

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Present Tense has the eerie quality of making line drawings of life, as thick and evocative as a photorealistic painting, a present tense as close as breath, but as full of longing as a bad case of nostalgia. These poems are pointed, incisive, shorn of embellishment, pulling a thin line through choice to consummation. Possibility become finite. The retrospective of age.

The first piece, it was, gives a flavor to the entire collection, both in title and content, spanning a lifetime of artistic choices in three pages, but leaving haunting details just outside the prose in the blank spaces. 
 
These pieces have a surprisingly complex resonance considering their simplicity, and they bear rereading. Even some of the shortest poems, like she said, or she used to, evoke moods that are worth sitting with again. 
 
Some of these poems surprise by ending with a punch line. A few of them turn inward—writing about writing. A collection of poetry about art and life and poetry and how it all becomes one life.
 
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Present Tense Poetry