Book Review: Carl Adamshick's "Curses and Wishes"

My reading of this book was interrupted by a fire in my building (thankfully, no one was hurt), so I read it twice. I am almost convinced I should read it the third time because I feel I'm missing something.

Carl Adamshick's debut offering "Curses And Wishes" is full of fine phrases and artful atmosphere. The cover art suits the contents perfectly. It is a sketch of a nearly leafless tree with a human spine behind it. This is fully evocative of the sort of raw and bare images that Adamshick favors. He certainly has a real skill with the technical aspects of free verse poetry and knows how to put together sentences that cause the reader to pause a moment in thought. For instance:

We forget almost everything,
even though we believe we live to remember.

And:

The further within the word you go,

you only find
more word, more mind, more dead.

These phrases are like powerful aphorisms sprinkled throughout. In his shorter poems, he sometimes carries this power through to the end of a piece. Unfortunately, behind the stark naked imagery and powerful aphoristic sentences, there is a void. It is as if all the technical brilliance is merely surface tensel. One gets the feeling that they have been shown a crowd of people without discerning any of the individuals in it. When one closes the book, Adamshick still feels as much a total stranger as when one opened it. It lacks heart.

But then again, maybe I'm missing something. Or maybe that is the point. "Curses And Wishes" is certainly a sincere collection, in the same way that some arty films are sincere but manage to lock the audience outside, keeping secrets rather than whispering them, remaining guarded and aloof rather than creating intimacy.