Couple

In his Rider trilogy, Mark Rudman perfected a mixed genre form - combining dialogue, lyric and prose. While employing some of the same techniques that have become 'signature Rudman' - the compact, colloquial line, dazzling shifts from popular culture to classical history - The Couple also breaks new ground. This new book is a collection of discrete poems organized around four poem sequences, 'Long-Stemmed Rose,' 'The Shallowness of the Lake,' 'Perseus Surprised, Andromeda Unbound,' and 'Fragile Craft.' As the title suggests, the theme of relationships, both dark and erotically-charged, emerges here as Rudman's focus. The couples in the book include parents, lovers, a young boy and girl in elementary school, Perseus and Andromeda, Mary Ure and Robert Shaw, and Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.