Gifts - Rob McLennan

The Eponymous First Part Of Mclennan's New Book Consists Of Fifty Gifts Each Centred Around Words, Phrases, Or Glyphs Of Language That Initiate And Replicate Their Own Fractal Transformations: Some Remain Simply Found Fragments About Which Other Words And Phrases Unfold, Some Lose Themselves Into Pieces That We Forget Were Once Found, Some Mirror Themselves In Other Forms, Others Become Simply Something Other In Language As It Moves Both With And Away From Them, Each Creating A Syntax Of Meaning That Is Specific To Its Own Occasion. All Are Addressed To The Poet's Intimates-two Dozen Are, Significantly, Valentines-the Rest Admonitions, Remembrances, Messages And Homages Made Public By The Readers' Acts Of Part Two, Incomplete, We Are Invited To Watch The Poet Robbed Of His Intent As Unexpected Words Interrupt His Texts, Turning Declaratives Into Interrogatives, Questions Into Requests: Would You Leave (accidental) Behind -each Poem An Apparent Loop Of Closure, But One That Signifies Its Failure Or Incompletion By Ending, Or Starting Over Again, With Its First Title Word. In Part Three, Weightless, The Poet Frees The Signifier From The Weight Of The Signified.