"Ledger domain" is a near homophone for "legerdemain" and the poems between the covers of David Stanford Burr’s Ledger Domain evince both definitions of that word: cleverly executing deception (or degrees of deception) and displaying skill or adroitness. Whether musing on memory or invoking the muse, these poems amuse with their wry humor, playfulness, and double-entendres and also focus vividly on small details, often turning a little observed moment into a very large idea evocatively and wonderfully realized.
Poems spark from such diverse "prompts" as a banal email solicitation, an exploration of what a six-letter mystery word "is," and how a jumble of wooden letters in the street might spell out a surprising reveal that resonates poignantly. The sound underlays with alliteration, assonance, internal and slant rhymes; the rhythm propels; and the richness and precision of language sweep the reader along the swift and deep river of the poet’s imaginative sensibility. The deft diction and sureness of expression of this poet's unique voice ring with authority.
In nine, themed sections Ledger Domain shepherds the reader on a journey from birth, through the neighborhoods of childhood, adulthood, and parenthood to the likelihood of an afterlife, an alpha to omega expanse that blurs the boundaries of human life. Interweaved—as with all our lives—are experiences of family, sensuality, sexuality, oneness with nature, spirituality, creative process, and the engagement with personae we come across or that are the legerdemain of our psyches. The reader journeys through David Stanford Burr's words and vision and closes Ledger Domain with having arrived in the literal world, again, but with new eyes. |
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This is a rich debut collection by a poet already well practiced and with deep connections to poetry's formal and informal traditions. David Burr everywhere shows his love of language—an erudite fooling around resides next to both serious intent and randy diversions. The poetry is often studded with archaic flurries, poetic diction, often shunned by today's prose-laden "self-expression." Burr has a fine ear for the lyrical line, particularly when creating within form; note his sonnets and the villanelle. We mainly hear an objective voice, but it's also the personal one, touching on parental love and affection. His human sympathy extends even to creatures as small as a mole, and as familiar as a cat or dog.
—Barry Wallenstein, author of At the Surprise Hotel
What if Hopkins, Yeats, or Thomas were writing poems in today's world—the sumptuous music, the ebb and flow of sentient life that, for David Burr, means being alive and alone as he listens for and finds the world’s heartbeat. "I am taking the sounding of the sea," he writes in his communion of one-to-one. "The sea is taking the sounding of me." I succumb to his luxuriantly crafted verses—their "febrile, feeble effort against loss, / with lyrical effusion." Within his formal certainty I realize how our creations console us. The shifting sands, the fleeting life so richly inhabited—Burr offers a paean, for all its agonies, to the beauty of the world itself.
—Burt Kimmelman, author of Wings Apart
Readers will surely find poems to enjoy and connect to in Ledger Domain, David Burr's varied and carefully crafted collection. Poems are built from the materials of everyday life—parenthood, a spouse, pets, walks on the beach, evocations of childhood and family, an action-driven dream life, intimations of mortality—all rendered in language highly attentive to the pleasures of sound. The poems add up to one person's autobiography in poetry, but every reader will find some poems that speak, enjoyably, to his or her own life.
—Patricia Carlin, author of Second Nature
David Stanford Burr's book, Ledger Domain, is composed of poems polished to a high sheen. His language, concise and controlled, enhances the power of the poems to lead us on an exploration of our own humanity and all the connections that enrich our lives.
—Maria Mazziotti Gillan, American Book Award winner for All That Lies Between Us
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