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American Poet, The Journal of the Academy of American Poets, Fall 2006 The Making of Collateral Beauty by Mark Yakich Tupelo Press Mark Yakich's chapbook of prose poems is strikingly equal parts prose and poetry. His prose is rolling and natural while maintaining its poetic compression. The pieces assembled here often remind us that they are, in fact, poems: "This poem begins with a line found under my sister's hat..." The self-conscious speaker is also a self-conscious editor, as the poems seem to be simultaneously unfolding and folding back on themselves as in "Index of Lawn Bowling or Index of Teenage Intimacy": A memorandum on the movie version of this poem: it's bound to be bad. But I still hope it's made in my lifetime.Yakich's poems give the reader the feeling of being right alongside the poet as he is creating them. They are clever, funny, and overly aware of themselves in the best possible way. Their form is organic and self-justified. These are not prose poems that leave one wondering why the poet didn't choose prose or poetry.  |