The Ever Shrinking Universe

Poet William Greenfield portrays the gritty realties of working class family life in a new collection informed by his work in child welfare.

Rarely has the abased adage to "write what you know" produced such profound results as these poems from William Greenfield, for what he knows from personal experience and from years as a family services worker has afforded him insights into a world rarely depicted in verse, a working-class world of railbirds and Newports, of "fifties peeled from a working man's wad," but mostly of poverty, mental illness, and substance abuse, a world of diminishing possibilities and of days getting shorter. Asked by a colleague if he cares about his clients, "I / said I don't know how to make myself do that." But these poems say otherwise, as his clear-eyed realist's compassion is on display throughout. So is his proficiency with language ("winter's museum of wonders") and observation ("the earth is a publicly owned commodity / fractured into billions of individual shares"). He even pulls off a poem about "The First Time You Fall in Love" and makes us experience it anew. And he offers the reassurance that even in the face of such stark realities, it's okay "that the world gets smaller / everyday. / There is no room left / for suicide bombers, / federal deficits, / troubled souls." "So we shrink / down, our world a snow globe. Shaken, / it's nothing but a swirl of flakes. Wound up, / we hear nothing but a twinkle / of mirth."