Ordinary Sun
ISBN: 978-0-9844752-2-3
Poetry / 120 pp. / pbk.
Black Ocean, 2011
$14.95
Reviewed by Erin Lyndal Martin
One of the most infamous images in Luis Buñuel's iconic film Un Chien Andalou is the scene in which a woman's eye is slit. Immediately, the omniscience of the narrator is shattered, opening the movie up to many interpretations and therefore many authors.
Similarly, Matthew Henriksen's Ordinary Sun opens with the line "An eye is not enough," splintering the reader's point of view before the text is even begun. "What I cannot find in the morning is most myself," concludes the third poem, further asserting the transparency of the narrator; the second line of the following poem reads "where I was beyond repair." Even the book's structure mimics that fragmentation, being comprised of many subtitled sections, including two from Henriksen's previous chapbook, Is Holy (horse less press).
