Tropical Green

the long version

"Chip Dameron's Tropical Green is rich with images of the South Texas coastal regions. "Buzzards" is a hilarious poem that links car engines ("Gas and sparking, pistons, compression"), buzzards, and student aversion to poetry; "Cicadas" is equally funny although in a quieter way, comparing the "insect mantra" to "a six-legged Buddha, sitting in his tree / with his 17-year smile and thousands of incarnations." Never pretentious or contrived, Dameron's lines are crisp and insightful: "All the Young Swans" describes the "bloody toeboxes" of young ballet dancers who "floated to applause / across a lake of illusion." There is wisdom in these poems: "Instructing My Son" shows a father's awareness that his son has "stopped [listening to him] fifty yards ago," that the boy is moving, "stride for stride, / to the sound of his own breathing." Dameron's endings are particularly strong, often coming as a sharp surprise and causing the poem to reverberate with sudden metaphoric force, "sweet against the bone" and giving "new daylight / the shadow that it needed"--Publisher's website.