The Trouble He Brews

Poet Jackson Mac Low once referred to Michael Blitz as a "master of the serious pun." In this new volume of poems, Blitz explores the ways in which language is always doubling, and then doubling again when it crashes into another language--in this case English and Hebrew. Readers who do not read or understand Hebrew will have no difficulty following the many knots that Blitz ties and unties. Those who can at least sound out the Hebrew will find still another layer of sonic doubling, and readers who understand the Hebrew will discover more layers of complexity--more of the "serious puns" that characterize much of Michael Blitz's poetry. "The Trouble He Brews" also tells a story. The speaker of these poems is experiencing the strangeness of language just as the reader does.