The Narrow Cabinet, 293

A journey of the heart as it faces the terms of its own demise. The Narrow Cabinet is a book about change, loss, and the struggle to understand what the hell is going on in a world experiencing such rapid transformations. The movement is from (a) an old dispensation of tough minded, rugged living, and surviving troubled times through (b) a narcissistic sinkhole of complacency leading ultimately to (c) a zombie apocalypse. That is the general trajectory. But I hope the work itself complicates the tropes. The old dispensation is by no means a paradise, nor is it dealt with nostalgically. The seeds of all the trouble are there from the start. But there is something admirable in the strength and fearless grit we find during that phase. In the sinkhole phase, the voice flits between depressive angst and lunatic outrage as oppressive forces exert ever more stubborn pressure. Here the speaker begins seeking the cause of the trouble that worsens until ultimately manifesting as zombie culture. With the outbreak of the zombie apocalypse, the terms of the illness become apparent. I could go on about the variations in tone, the humour (sometimes sardonic) mixed with dead seriousness, the mix of free verse with formal, but those are best encountered with the reading. Suffice it to say, the style varies with the tone, as one might expect of lyric poetry.