All art constantly aspires, Walter Pater claimed, towards the condition of music. The poems in Tom Snarsky's first full-length collection Light-Up Swan are animated by twin forces: an abiding love of music, and an equal fondness for the ghostly conversation engendered by quotation. With whimsy tempered by obsessive fascination, the author unfolds an open dialogue with a private pantheon of musicians and poets, both living and dead. These spectral encounters are staged on a far-reaching array of settings, from oceans to virtual gamescapes, starry canvases to comedy clubs. The speaker of the poems is by turns assured and uncertain: in one moment explaining a mathematical result from automata theory, and in the next returning to youthful conflicts and preoccupations. Are we going in circles is a fair question for this cyclical book that wears its obsessions and anxieties on its sleeve, but Light-Up Swan moves towards a helical lift. Like a string of soft lights winding up a swan's neck, these poems are composed of gentle details that welcome readers into a charmingly off-kilter world-once inside, their curiosity will be rewarded by a warm and unusual sensibility that only Tom Snarsky can bring.
