I read Joe Donahue’s work because it’s purposeful and clear: an applied and reapplicable poetics. I use his poems.
Donahue lays down a lot of references, ranging widely across time and subject area and in close proximity to each other. This produces synthesis, sometimes to a rhetorically breathtaking degree. In the space of a page, Hermes invents the sonogram, Nicodemus waits for Jesus, acid-tripping garage-rockers find purity, and the sun sets behind the pillars of Hercules and rises on Peruvian mountains. It’s more than a mere postmodern mashup; it’s constructive:
2014 by Star Black02.jpg "Joseph Donahue, 2014 (photo by Star Black).")
