Soul Data

Kirkus Reviews

Loads of sonnets and villanelles make up this first volume, the winner of an award honoring the late Vassar Miller, who shares nothing in common with Svenvoldþs irregularly rhymed verse. Not an object or language poet per se, Svenvold often sacrifices sense to sound, though itþs not clear if his obscurities are deliberate. A long sonnet sequence, þDeath of the Cabaret Hegel,þ celebrates a Seattle performance space in an old factory situated at the continentþs edge, where everything is þall echoþ and rain. Eventually demolished for a freeway, the scene it leaves behind boasts the glories of mixed zoning and thrift-shop hunting. Three later poems fail to capture the tone or textures of their subject, Thelonious Monk (who supposedly þtaught us a lesson in libertyþ); Svenvold seems more at home with the þ60s nihilism of the Doors (þVariation on Themes by The Doorsþ). The poet establishes his working-class bona fides in poems about a garage during the day (þWorkþ) and during the þGraveyard Shift.þ Svenvoldþs sense of irony fails to illumine poems about his parents dying, even though theyþre buried near Jimi Hendrix. Such found facts and a tendency to burst into pseudo-profundity (þyou cannot connectþ) suggest artistic immaturity, though there are glimmers of talent here, too.