Response to "Fluorescence" Reading

      This is a book of poems by Jennifer K. Dick, and I have read the first half of the book and my overall reaction is that it seems to be very postmodern. I think that modern poetry strongly relies on old fashion structures with new ideas and that assumption is based on the fact that that is how modern music is. This work is published in 2004 which could be seen as being in a postmodern time period and the works of the poetry are definitely not reliant on old fashioned structures and use structure in very unique ways to possibly create a feeling of passing through time or maybe it wants the reader to fill in the space with their thoughts. I don't believe the spaces are just put in for looks.
      A theme that I noticed in the first half of this book is maybe nervousness, anxiety, or mania. On page four it says "The two violinists are wide-eyed. I can't see myself." Just in the language initially I feel like there is anxiety not to mention it is about an explosion which is a reoccurring theme and this explosion could be causing the anxiety. On page 11 it gives something that constantly repeats that it is going to begin the beginning and it even has some stuttering in it. This makes me think of somebody having a nervous breakdown and trying to find comfort in repeated words and not being able to articulate them-self well. On page 14 it mentions Ophelia who is a character from Shakespeare's Macbeth who had a nervous breakdown.
      Page 37 is really the part that grabs my attention. This is right at the end of the first half of the book and it has been talking about an explosion and has had thematic nervousness in the language and then this part on page 37 comes and really puts a pretty clear perspective on modern American society. The thing that strikes me the most is that every two words in the beginning brings up a huge idea in our society and they are all tied together by things that cause Americans anxiety. I just love reading this paragraph because it brings so many thoughts to my mind from every couple of words. All of these things lead up to the climactic moment where it talks about contemplating suicide and the thoughts that come with it like "would it work?" Then it proceeds to give reasons why any American will get depressed and again each one brings up a whole conversation and there are dozens of them in this poem. It ends with "or because of something no one could explain." And I like this because while it is giving examples it still doesn't exclude anything.
      I feel as though this book was designed for the writer to express her feelings in such a way that when other people read it they get the big picture of her feelings but have many holes to fill with their own feelings based on the spacing of the words where there are a lot of empty pages such as Page 5 that merely has the word "orange." And the abstract nature of the words and their loose connectivity gives this book huge opportunity for rereading and reinterpreting.