A Box of Longing with 50 Drawers: A Revisioning of the Preamble to the Constitution Paperback – Box set, June 10, 2005

This poet has a good heart in terms of her socio-politics. Some of the poems work okay, but the book is too elliptical in the popular contemporary style that dares not come right out and say anything, as if poetry has to be abstract and elliptical to be crafty or skillful. This sort of sparse writing is expressionistic or impressionistic, but does not succeed in conveying emotional depth, because it's afraid to come right out with poetic clarity and say something. Lots of wasted blank space on the pages. It does not engage the good heartedness of the poet well enough or the emotional strength of her good sociopolitical convictions. She needs to be unafraid of really talking, really displaying feeling and clarity. There is potential here, but this is not memorable poetry. Some of the poems are too solipsistic and not peopled with humanity enough. The themes attempted are worthy, but the craft needs work. It was a good conceit, to address the failures of the constitution, but it fails in emotional connectedness. Less experimentalism, more communication, please! Look to Wendell Berry or Mary Oliver, Robert Bly, James Wright, John Logan, Alicia Ostriker, Marge Piercy or Galway Kinnell, Pablo Neruda, etc. for clues to lasting poetry. The younger generation was fed too much NY School, Andy Warhol, Anne Waldman, John Ashbery crap, though Ashbery has skill with metaphor, simile and imagery, his work adds up to a good deal of nihilism. The NY School of Poetry was a big failure, along with the Language School of pure nonsense that appeals to only other theorists. This poet should look at the poets of the last generation who write lasting and meaningful, moving poetry. Forget the "Dingleberry School of Poetry!" Ginsberg was never really part of the NY School, and he spoke lasting truths very politically astute with not fear of verbosity. Same for Walt Whitman, but if you want sparse lyrics, one has to strive to the level of meaning Emily Dickinson conveys in her best work. Our American iconic poets are still our best teachers! 3 stars for the good intent of the theme!

This book has one of the greatest titles ever. I considered giving it 4 or 5 stars for the meaning behind the title alone.As has been mentioned, this book is the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution with a poem for each individual word. Five minutes after I post this review I'll regret whichever number of stars I choose. Some of the poems I don't get, and they don't add anything to the overall scope of the book. One of the "the" poems, for instance. Others work amazingly well. All are brief. You could read this book five times a day without wasting your life away.Capturing not so much the heart(s) of a nation, but the reality of a nation as diverse as the USA in so few words is impressive. Blind flagwavers will have problems with this book because it effectively gets to what has become the American Truth behind some of these words but the Truth is not what gets taught in American History classes.Benka asks more than condemns. We are a box of longing with 50 drawers but the drawers aren't closed yet.Soft Skull Press has so many great, interesting or powerful books. When visiting their website you'll always stumble across something that sounds like it has potential. I bought this at the same time as  Surviving the Moment of Impact , which is more direct than this. That book is total heart. This one is more conceptual.

I don't remember ever seeing a book exactly like this one, and I give Jen Benka points for originality. She has a lot of imagination, it pops out of her like toast, and here she puts it to good stead by exploring the semantic implications of the US constitution. The famous "Preamble" that begins We the People is broken down and each word begins a new poem. In the process we find out that it is the USA, with its fifty states, that is the eponymous "box of longing with 50 drawers." Like Muriel Rukeyser, Benka directs her poetic in the service of the community, spreading her nets wide, yet narrowing them down enough to catch whatever fish she's after. Like Rukeyser's verse, the American sweep and ambition of Benka's project obliviates the need for any individually perfect poem, for as the old saying goes about men and streetcars, if you don't like the one, just wait and another will be along in a minute.The best are Niedecker-like indications of specific moments in US history, purified and calcified to the merest, feathery suggestion of what power, what blood, turned our nation from a dream into a crushing weight of iron.Sometimes the poetry can seem a little naive, with preachy utterance and a Youngbloods/Hayley Mills reiteration to "let's get together," downplaying its difficulty. But most of the time Benka succeeds admirably in a project which, while continually flirting with agitprop, never succumbs to mere rhetoric. The poems have a strength and their unity provokes reaction.Spicer said that theoretically the perfect poem has an infinitely small vocabulary, and I wonder if Benka kept this suggestion in mind while composing the quiet, small poems of this book. I must have the second edition because the book I have looks completely different than the one pictured above. My copy is basically red with fifty lavender-colored rectangles pictured on it. Hmm, glad to see it's doing well!