BREAKDOWN DANCER

In this volume of poetry, the pains of heartache and mental health become the rhythms of performance.

Music inflects nearly every line of Nathan’s poetry. From Lady Gaga playing in the narrator’s headphones in “An Indian-American Travels in Poland on a Night Train” to the poet talking to God in line for a Vampire Weekend concert in “Now Is the Time,” music provides the texture and sensibility of these pop-conscious verses. Playlists start and finish the book, with another in the middle for good measure, setting the mood in which readers should access Nathan’s words. The poems grapple with memories of childhood, early romances (or would-be relationships), moments of love, and flashes of heartbreak. The poet finds aspiration even in times of despair, as in the poem “How To Unlock Your Heart in 8 Steps,” which begins: “Pluck your memories— / our past kaleidoscopic lives / are firm, mahogany cherries / at flavor peak.” The title poem imagines a mental health episode as an ecstatic performance, even as it spirals into confusion and violence: “An ambulance screams ‘Applesauce! / Applesauce!’ / I feverishly clap my hands. / The hospital’s floor lights up as the music pumps. / I start to moonwalk. / The guard face punches me / in an attempt to bring me back to my senses.” From the early awe the poet senses from looking at a photograph of his mother’s guru to the triumph he feels pretending to be He-Man and his indulgent daydreams about Nietzsche bicycling across Mars, these poems celebrate the potential brilliance of everyday life. As Nathan writes about the time a tourist asked him for help finding the New York skyline while standing in the middle of the city, “Yes, I know the feeling / of being there, not seeing / what is all around you, always forgetting / to look up.”

The poet writes in a slam-influenced style, with occasional rhymes and an emphasis on rhythm. He tends not to do much scene-setting, and sometimes the poems have the disjointed, announcement quality of battle raps: “I am this breath projection / on that razor’s edge. I am a series / of information points. I am a son, a phantom / at a point of tension, so please give me / your attention. I am concentration, this wandering / cloud, an actor of muscles and nerves, a dancing / circle of blood.” At its best, though, Nathan’s language captures the feeling and logic of his setting—often New York City—as here in “Live my life in N.Y.C.”: “Feelings must conceal. / Out of work by E.O.D., / trying just to deal. / Cruising down the B.Q.E., / awakened to the Real. / Bound towards the wine-dark sea, / To see what waves reveal.” His experiments with form are fun as well. The lines of “Sunlight Savings” and “Ah, A Pot Poem” climb perpendicularly up the page while “This Is Not Not a Love Poem” is composed of out-of-context screen grabs from a text conversation. Not everything here works, but the poems are varied and passionate enough to keep readers engaged.

A wide-ranging poetry collection with a sharp ear and a lot of heart.