The Nervous Filaments

The word "Filament," taken from David Dodd Lee's title The Nervous Filaments, suggests both a fine thread and the element of a light bulb that can be heated to incandescence, and appropriately so, as each of these illuminated poems acts as a thread in a finely woven collection. Together they create a cultural commentary that is at once wry and satirical while still teeming with emotion. "One of the new jobs we have is dating // you work in reality TV--// the myth of the soul mate," Dodd writes, but is the soul mate a myth? Still wary, Dodd says "Love is a form of gambling," yet allows emotion to make its way in: "Pushing the linens back / we conceive a love." This is the beauty of these poems: Dodd is able to find underlying truth and emotion in a sometimes artificial and frenzied world, as when a speaker declares "I know I woke up / and the sun was staring at me // Orange Juice // it's all about packaging // And the mockingbird knows something at 2 a.m."Lee's poems explore both presence and absence, or, rather, what is present in the space created by absence: "I have this candle and what she left on it // her smell." The juxtaposition of stark imagery in The Nervous Filaments creates an acute sense of longing and loss: "She got the call at ten 'oh' seven // every child in her class began evaporating . . . // no good bye kiss // not even a word // driving and driving over long bridges." We are continually left with a haunted feeling that the voices in these poems feel as we feel, and that they experience what we have or will experience.