The Middle

The Middle is beautiful and powerful—Angela Hume’s line breaks are beautiful and powerful—her pages are beautiful and powerful—and all that grace animates calm outrage, ghostlier awareness (“private like a thought / for a wrist, of a thigh”), keener sounds (“try looking away try looking away try looking away try looking away try looking away try”)—keener ethics, too (first / demarcate // an aesthetics of / / injury”)—the body is ghost—polis is eyes but police is eyes too—and polis is police (“state of pacifi / cation state of // damage state of / destroy-all-ex // cess body state of little / to no // speech / ill / state // police / state”)—we have to have political poetry—we can’t be human otherwise—and what holds here is a new Objectivism—a clarity made actual in a construct of words (“(inhabit that / incision // in such a way that can’t be used”)—this clarity holds against and in the violence that surrounds us (Benjamin: “something rotten in law is revealed”)—Angela Hume is a necessary poet.