The Throats of Narcissus

In Bruce Bond's fourth full-length book, *The Throats of Narcissus*, the myth of Narcissus finds its transfiguring mirror in poems of a contemporary world, a world rendered precarious by literal and metaphysical famine, by the blood of fathers and distant strangers, the charred relics of foreign wars and nearer fires as well-a world wrestling with problems of its own self-regard and the consequent spiritual longing for personal communion and creative transformation. Thus the myth of Narcissus resonates not only as a story of self-absorption and demise, but also of life-affirming metamorphosis. As a result, we see not only poems concerning childhood and the dawn of guilt, desire, and self-awareness, but also poems featuring jazz figures of the fifties and sixties, heroes of creative discipline and play who dealt musically with their own narcissistic wounds and addictions, leaving a generous legacy of pleasures, however rebellious and private their roots.