A collection of poems that contemplate the bureaucracy of the mind
through interior political cabinets Taking its name from the banal,
purgatorial space outside (but inside) a doctor's office, Well
Waiting Room imagines the conversations we have with ourselves at
this liminal site as an exchange between interior bureaucrats, each
of whom governs a particular aspect of the psyche. The poems
explore the dynamics of this political ministry, which includes the
Cabinets of Desire, Indulgences, Self-Preservation, Ordinary
Affairs, Ambivalence, Confrontations, and many others-there's even
a press secretary, a curator, and a general counsel. Like a cabinet
of curiosity wrapped in red tape, the poems examine the
compartmentalization of the mind and the confounding news of the
day. Formally, the poems range from dramatic monologues to
combative sonnets, quippy memos to voice-y prose blocks,
incantatory interludes to dreamlike visual landscapes. Sometimes,
the poems address a purely internal conflict: Why do we lie to
ourselves, indulge in schadenfreude, repeat the same mistakes?
Other times, the poetic lens points outward like a spear,
confronting the external universe: social injustice, polar ice
melt, the Trump administration, and other man-made disasters. But
in both universes, the poems find joy: the first observation of
gravitational waves, the otherworldly beauty of rare marine
species, the discovery that you are your own best way out. For
Schlaifer, the underlying question is an epistemological one, an
ontological one, a theological one. Why are we here, how do we know
things, and why does God-so often-seem to be working against us? In
Schlaifer's bureaucratic vision of the mind, readers will see their
own internal voices affectingly (and often humorously) reflected.
The book traverses unknowable terrain in sturdy boots. It unearths
not answers but better questions for our time.
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